Campaigners in Israel are calling for new legislation against coercive control by abusive partners, falling in line with the UK and other states.
Laws in Britain prohibit stalking, restricting a partner’s movements, cutting them off from family and friends, controlling money or monitoring them electronically.
But Israel has no statutory definition of domestic abuse encompassing the full spectrum of coercive and controlling behaviour. Campaigners want definitions of domestic violence to go beyond physical assault and include all forms of abuse.
The Rackman Centre for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, in Tel Aviv, is among those pushing for the country to introduce legislation to recognise coercive control, economic violence, and psychological abuse as forms of domestic violence
The organisation gave the example of a married woman who was stalked by her husband over a long period of time: “She knew he was stalking her, but for a really long time she didn’t recognise herself as a victim of violence,” the unit’s head, Vered Barr, said.
It was only when she approached the Rackman Centre that she fully understood the abusive nature of her husband’s behaviour and ultimately decided to divorce, Barr said.
Existing legislation intended to protect against domestic abuse – the 1991 Prevention of Domestic Violence Law, is flawed – and even if a social worker recognises non-physical abuse, the system fails to provide appropriate solutions, lawyers warn. A victim might be offered a shelter, but not protection from controlling behaviour making her home unsafe, they say.
The law provides civil and criminal mechanisms for tackling violence, but “many courts are still adhering to the more common traditional perspective that domestic violence, or violence in general, is only physical violence”, said Rackman Centre academic director, Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari.
Yet, she added, coercive control is among “the most common and dangerous form of silent violence”, and can precede serious attacks, including killings, even with no previous history of physical assaults.
In England and Wales, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 created a statutory definition of domestic abuse that encompassed physical and sexual violence, but that also included threatening behaviour, controlling or coercive behaviour, economic abuse and psychological or emotional abuse.
“We are not in this stage of things in Israel,” Halperin-Kaddari said.
In July, the Knesset rejected a private member’s bill to add a definition of domestic violence to the 1991 legislation.
The scale of the problem has grown amid the impact of war. Israel’s welfare ministry received 4,565 relevant reports of domestic abuse between from 2023 to April 2024, compared with 2,760 during the corresponding period the previous year.
One woman, who gave her name only as Naomi, said her husband returned from reserve duty in Gaza a different person: “He was back home with me and the children in body but it was like I didn’t know him. He can fly into rages and even though he has never hit me, the psychological fear of walking on eggshells is terrifying.
“The children feel it and are scared too. He can suddenly just break things, throw things, and, honestly, I don’t know where it will end. It’s like living under a dark cloud waiting for the bomb to explode.”
Last November, the Israeli Femicide Observatory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem released data revealing a sharp rise in femicide cases across Israel. From January 1 to November 18 that year, 44 women were murdered, it said. Of that number, 32 cases were classified as femicide, meaning the women were killed by men because of their gender.
In the 10 years to 2017, 126 women were killed by their domestic partners, according to separate statistics from the Israel Police and the labour, social affairs and social services ministry.
Campaigners are concerned that the coercive behaviour that may eventually lead to murder is not recognised as an offence by institutions, or in some cases, the women affected.
Shelly Blatt-Zak, chief executive of the Rackman Centre, said of roughly 700 women approaching the unit annually for advice, around half described some form of domestic abuse, many involving economic deprivation – such as a husband taking their credit card and cutting off cash – or psychological torture.
She said: “In a lot of cases they don’t even identify themselves as victims of domestic violence. If they don’t suffer the bruises or sexual abuse, they don’t recognise themselves as victims until they start speaking to us.”
A victim of economic deprivation who gave her name as Sarah told the JC that after she made aliyah, her boyfriend restricted her finances and access to friends and family.
“He made it seem in the beginning like he was looking after me, I moved in, he took care of all the bills, but it wasn’t long before he was controlling my access to money while I was looking for work. He also told me that I don’t need friends, and they’re not important in Israel ... I didn’t know how untrue that was at the time.”
Sarah eventually managed to leave, escaping to a friend and finding work to become independent.
The Rackman Centre, which offers advice via its helpline, and free legal representation in civil and rabbinical courts, said religious divorce can also enable coercive control.
“The withholding of the get is another form of abuse,” Halperin-Kaddari said. “It’s restraining. It’s holding the woman captive.”
Israeli courts can issue protection orders and impose GPS-monitoring, sending alerts to victims if an abuser enters a prohibited area. But experts still fear the eligibility criteria remain too restrictive for effective early intervention.
The Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe treaty on preventing violence against women, is an international benchmark, ratified by Britain in 2022. The Rackman Centre campaigned for six years for Israel to accede and came close but the process is currently suspended.
Halperin-Kaddari believes changing legislation would filter down into police and welfare procedures and women’s understanding of their own experiences.
The current distinction between physical and non-physical violence, she said, is “very murky and misleading”. “When a woman gets slapped or hit, there’s no argument. But when there are no such marks, it’s very easy for one to delude herself it’s not serious, it’s not abuse, it’s just a regular marital difficulty.”
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