Center for Women's Justice

16/07/2025

🔥 FINAL EPISODE! 🎧
In this final chapter of Justice Unbound, Rivkah revisits the stories, legal battles, and feminist resistance that shaped the series. From agunot and mamzerut to chalitza and civil justice, she discusses what has changed, what hasn’t, and what still must be done to secure true equality for Jewish women in Israel. A look back — and a call forward.
🎧LISTEN NOW wherever you get your podcasts or at the link in the comments >>

06/07/2025

🔥 NEW EPISODE! 🎧 Can civil courts succeed where religious courts have failed? Rivkah Lubitch interviews Susan Weiss, founder of the Center for Women’s Justice, about a bold legal strategy she pioneered in Israel: suing recalcitrant husbands for damages in civil court when they refuse to grant their wives a get.

With personal stories, legal insight, and hard-won victories, Susan reveals how her feminist legal strategy has shifted the power dynamic between women, men, and religious authority in Israel—and why the solution to get refusal may never come from within the system.

LISTEN NOW on all podcast platforms or at the link in the first comment >>

28/05/2025

🚨New episode! Mamzerim, Part 2🚨
In this follow-up episode, Rivkah unpacks the legal system that enforces mamzerut in Israel—how laws and state policies conspire to erase biological fathers, deny children their rights, and deepen the pain of already vulnerable families. Through real stories, she exposes the hidden costs of preserving religious fictions at the expense of justice.
🎧LISTEN NOW on all podcast platforms or via the link in the comments below

Justice Unbound: Women, Religion and the State of Israel · Episode

25/05/2025

Through a powerful story, Rivkah unpacks the painful and often hidden issue of mamzerut—a halachic status branding children as illegitimate and barring them from marrying within the Jewish community.

Rivkah outlines the religious and social roots of this stigmatizing label, its devastating impact on families, and its dangerous entanglement with Israel’s divorce system.

This is the first of a two-part series on one of Judaism’s most painful and morally fraught challenges.

🎧LISTEN NOW: Link in the first comment >>

Justice Unbound: Women, Religion and the State of Israel · Episode

04/05/2025

🚨New episode alert 🚨
Behind closed doors, a quiet bureaucracy decides who may love—and who loses a fundamental right.
Rivkah takes us deep into the shadows of Israel’s marriage system to explore the “blacklist”—a secret registry maintained by the Chief Rabbinate that tracks thousands of people prohibited from legally marrying in Israel.
From accusations of adultery to the status of mamzerim, we explore who gets listed, how, and why it’s nearly impossible to clear one’s name.

🎧Listen now-- link in the comments below >>

26/03/2025

🚨New episode alert! 🚨

Too many women find themselves powerless in the face of get refusal or being trapped as an agunah. But halachic prenuptial agreements can change that. Rivkah explains how these agreements use legal and halachic tools to prevent injustice and why every couple--engaged and married--should consider signing one.

🎧Listen now in the comments below >>
✍ Haven't signed one? What are you waiting for? Find CWJ's prenups and postnups in the comments >>
רבקה לוביץ

10/03/2025

🚨 New episode! 🚨

Susan reveals how Israel’s rabbinic courts concoct an unholy trifecta of rigid formalism, extortion, and violence to deal with women trapped in unwanted marriages. Who really holds the power—the husbands or the dayanim (rabbinic judges)? And should the ends justify the means when punishing get refusers?

Susan and Rivkah רבקה לוביץ discuss why change remains elusive when justice, religion, and human rights collide.

🎧 LISTEN NOW>> Link in the comments below ⬇️

24/02/2025

What must a woman prove to be divorced in a rabbinic court?

Susan shares a shocking case where she learned firsthand that, no matter what a husband does—whether he rapes, beats, cheats, takes another wife, withholds intimacy, or even if his wife is utterly repulsed by him—none of it grants her the right to leave. No fault of his is considered grounds for divorce.

How is this possible? What does this mean for women trapped in these marriages?

🎧 LISTEN to JUSTICE UNBOUND on all podcast platforms, or check the link in comments >>

Susan Weiss רבקה לוביץ

09/02/2025

According to Jewish tradition, a woman who outlives two husbands is labeled a “killer wife,” believed to bring misfortune to any future spouse. In Israel, a woman suspected of being a killer wife needs special permission to legally remarry. Susan and Rivkah dive into a fascinating 2014 rabbinic court ruling that allows one such woman to escape the stigma—while paradoxically reinforcing the very law that condemned her.

🎧 LISTEN to JUSTICE UNBOUND on all podcast platforms, or check the link in comments >>

Susan Weiss רבקה לוביץ

06/02/2025

In her latest The Times of Israel blog, Rivkah Lubitch exposes the painful reality faced by war widows who must undergo halitzah—a process that not only adds to their grief but also leaves them vulnerable to extortion and the devastating risk of becoming an agunah (a "chained" woman unable to remarry).

As Israel mourns and rebuilds, we cannot allow women to be trapped in lifelong limbo. CWJ offers a solution: a halachic prenuptial agreement that prevents these injustices before they happen.
Read the full piece in the comments below and learn how we can protect women’s rights in times of war and peace.
רבקה לוביץ