World
Rabbinical court rules woman is not Jewish after admitting she was a sex worker
Haifa Rabbinical Court launched an inquiry into the woman’s status after she had admitted to being a sex worker
October 18, 2018 09:24
Haifa Rabbinical Court launched an inquiry into the woman’s status after she had admitted to being a sex worker
October 18, 2018 09:24A rabbinical court ruled that an Israeli woman is no longer Jewish after the admission she was a sex worker prompted an investigation.
According to Haaretz, Haifa Rabbinical Court judges Daniel Edri, Ben-Zion Hacohen Rabin and Elad Eli ruled that the woman and her relatives would be unable to marry in a Jewish ceremony because she forged papers about her birth.
She was also fined 25,000 shekels. The investigation was prompted after the man she was divorcing made "a serious accusation against his wife – that she is a prostitute," the court's ruling said.
“The husband submitted a video clip in which the woman admits that she’s a prostitute and that she’s married to a slave. The court was surprised and horrified by the shocking things the woman said in the video clip,” the ruling continued.
They said the inquiry into her status was launched “in light of the woman’s behavior in public and her publicising her actions and her work before millions of viewers, and above all in light of the sages’ statement above.”
The judges said the woman had “removed the mask of the natural bashfulness that every child of Israel has”.
Because of her admission they said that “the court developed a serious suspicion that she indeed was not a daughter of Israel.”
Usually the court only opens an inquiry into a person’s Jewishness if they suspect that one member of a couple registering to marry is not Jewish.
But the rabbinical court ordered documents attesting to the woman’s Jewishness be sent to the police to test them for authentication.
They said the results showed they were forged.
“It seems that the applicant and her mother, in their effort to mislead the court, did more than any other forger exposed during my years of working as a Judaism clarifier,” said one of the officials who examined the documents.
“Aside from the false declarations and the forging of certificates, the applicant’s lies included fabricating data in the Ukraine Population Registry’s computer system during the court’s investigation,” the official said.
The court said it made the ruling public “to deter those who want to deceive the court and receive a false confirmation of Judaism by presenting forged documents or other means.”
When Haaretz asked the court if it had the authority to rule on the woman’s Jewishness outside the context of a marriage registration request, it said: “An applicant’s personal status has a direct bearing on the divorce process; thus the Judaism clarification regulations of 2010 require a clarification of Judaism in cases when required as part of a divorce procedure.
“In the event that the court determines that the woman isn’t Jewish, the marriage is in any case voided and the woman’s personal status is registered as single.”
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