Project Emesh is meant to be a very ambitious project.
In my previous posts I noted the two primary goals:
- To educate the consumerist public about how the system works and how to use it successfully.
- To serve as or to establish some kind of regulatory body which will oversee all affiliated Batei Din. Any Beis Din that won’t be affiliated with this umbrella agency will be considered an outcast.
The education part will be a bit tedious. The reason the general population is so ignorant about Batei Din is because this is a subject that most people really do not care to know about. It is not a routine part of their lives, and they have no need to know it…until they do. Alas, there is much to know and it takes a bit of work.
At the end of this series, I intend to present a list of reforms that will help simplify the education process. One of the reforms is that either the individual Batei Dinim, or the “regulatory body” that I hope to establish, will produce a standard pamphlet of procedures and do’s and don’t’s that should be made available to anyone who is facing a Din Torah. This would be just like the concise guides that we have on Hilchos Yichud, Bris Milah and Trumos, Maaseros, and Shmittah.
As for the establishment of a regulatory body, this is meant to include such things as an independent court for appeals (a very big subject) and an ethics committee. Doubtless, this requires a lot of cooperation from a lot of erudite people who, by nature, only like to do things “their way”. This is a very tall order.
After these, I added a third, less important, goal:
- At some point, I would like to create a database of specific Batei Din and rate their efficiency and compliance.
This is meant to be a means of gathering input from the public at large who have used the Batei Din in order to identify issues that need to be dealt with, and to determine which Batei Din are more reliable and which are less so.
Do any of these things already exist? Did anybody beat me to it?
Believe it or not, the answer is Yes, but not where I think they need to be.
I have spent more than enough time in chareidi Batei Din and I also trained to be a Toen Rabani and I have not heard a whisper of anything like this in our Batei Din. As such, I assumed they did not exist at all anywhere.
But just to be certain, I did my due diligence and research and, surprisingly, I came across two prototype models to my aspirations that are being tried out in the kipa-seruga [chareidi] dati-leumi (Chardali) and modern-Orthodox circles. One of these is an existing regulatory body and the other is an existing rating system for Batei Din.
Yep, they beat us to it. And they are a sure-fire sign that I am not the only one who recognizes a need for these things and that they are doable. They are already being done.
Let’s see what they are.
Rate My Beit Din
In the realm of a rating system for Batei Din, I stumbled across Rate My Beit Din.
Here are the basics of Rate My Beit Din from their website:
Rate My Beit Din is a revolutionary user based review site for the divorce department of batei din (Jewish Religious Courts) around the world.
Transparency in the Divorce Process
Think of us as “Yelp” for batei din. Our goal is simple: to increase transparency in the Jewish Divorce process. Our site includes features such as general information about each court, cost for the divorce process in that court, average response time, and whether or not people have had good experiences with a particular beit din. The site also aims to hold batei din accountable for this process by making these reviews public.
Objective Beit Din Ratings
Ratings are based on hard data compiled from the “Beit Din Experience Survey”, as well as professional evaluations of the beit din. Each page and beit din are rated according to the same questions and criteria.
Rate My Beit Din is a project of Chochmat Nashim in collaboration with organizations and individuals around the world seeking to end Get abuse, Get refusal and to return integrity to Jewish marriage and divorce.
In case you are not familiar with Chochmat Nashim, here is a blurb from Wikipedia:
Chochmat Nashim (Hebrew: חכמת נשים) is an Israeli organisation that promotes women's rights in the Orthodox Jewish community in Israel and the United States. Their work aims to raise awareness of trends and policies within Orthodoxy that might harm women and girls. The group's activities include the establishment of a photo bank which includes the images of Orthodox women, and the use of satirical publications which mimic Jewish Torah study aimed at educating Orthodox men about the unequal treatment of Jewish women in religious divorce proceedings.
In short, it is an Orthodox Jewish women's advocacy group far to the left. On the Wikipedia page there is a sidebar that sports the title: Part of a series of articles on Jewish feminism
This is not my cup of tea.
Incidentally, I don’t think that the person who wrote the description for Wikipedia is very fond of the organization.
Rate My Beit Din is not relevant or useful to my cause for several reasons:
- It is only addressing the Family Batei Din (Divorce courts) and not the Monetary Batei Din. I want a very similar system for the monetary Batei Din.
- It is a feature of a left-wing organization which does not display on its website any Rabbinical endorsements or alliances even from Modern or centrist Rabbis.
- The rating is highly unreliable due to its gender bias. What I mean is this. The goal of Chochmat Nashim is to make the divorce process more favorable to women. Even though much of their substance is presented in an egalitarian setting, since abuse can go both ways, the site is clearly women-oriented. It’s not called Chochmat Nashim for nothing.
When it conducts the surveys, it allows anyone, male or female, to participate and submit a review. Nonetheless, we can assume that the overwhelming majority of respondents will be women. Especially since one of the categories is, “Felt pressured by the BD to exchange something for Get.” Thus, the rating will not reflect how capable the Beis Din is in general but rather, how efficient it is for assisting the women based on their personal experience. We can also assume that, for the same couples, the men would rate the Beis Din based on their expectations and experiences which may be the inverse of the wife’s.
As a result, let’s take for example the CRC of Chicago which got 4 stars with 10 reviews and compare it with RCC California which merited 2 stars after 16 reviews. If the reviews were predominantly from the women, it’s possible that a consensus of men would give CRC Chicago 2 stars and RCC California 4 stars for the same performance. And it may also be, that neither rating would accurately reflect the overall professionalism of the Batei Din from a Halachic point of view.
- Another issue is that they are quick to list the Batei Dinim and display the ratings even after only one or two reviews. This can easily mislead a leader who sees a five-star rating or a one-star rating and does not realize that, in each case, only one person submitted a review. There should be some sort of minimum number of reviews before a Beis Din can be rated.
All that said, Rate My Beit Din does indeed mirror the system I would like to see in Batei Din for Mammonos. The important thing is that it lets the relevant Batei Dinim know that they are being watched and evaluated. I am gratified that there is a prototype up and running for this.
L’Chatchila
A ratings system is just the icing on the cake. As I wrote before, the more important goals are oversight, regulation, transparency, and a method of keeping the litigants informed of rules, regulations, procedures, rights and obligations. Most of the time, the litigants are only told of their obligations during run-time and they are not told of their rights at all.
I also wrote that after all my years here in Eretz Israel and my experience in this field, if I am not aware of the existence of any such regulatory body, then there probably isn’t one.
Not so.
Although there are not any long-standing, well-established organizations, it turns out that there is something very recent that looks to be promising. This is a very nascent organization that was only first established in 2021 to unify a group of already existing Batei Din in the Chardali communities in Israel (only) into a network. We are talking about the Batei Din of places like Beit-El, Eli, Kochav Yaakov, Mitzpeh Yericho, Kiryat Ono, Kiryat Arba, Psagot, Maaleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Karnei Shomron, you get the idea.
It is actually the reincarnation of another organization created in 2018 by the same people. It seems that the original version petered out during Corona and is dead in the water and it was reincarnated to the newer version.
But before 2018, there was nothing at all.
The name of the organization is L’Chatchila (לכתחילה - מערך בתי דין לממונות). You can see their original website HERE.
The earlier organization was called Igud Batei Din L’Mammonos (Union of Batei Din for Financial Claims) איגוד בתי דין לממונות. I suppose we can now call it Bediavad. See their website HERE.
As you can see on their website, they created a union of 15 Chardali Batei Din. They did not get a lot of publicity and around the era of corona it petered out. But it was reestablished under a new name in 2021 and is alive and kicking ever since. The headquarters is the Kollel for Dayanut in Yeshivat Heichal Eliyahu in Kochav Yaakov (or Psagot down the road). The founders are Rav Nir Aviv, who is the Rosh Kollel at Yeshiva Heichal Eliyahu, along with Rav Yitzchak Zaga, Rav Baruch Paz and Rav Ariel BarEli.
If you know Hebrew, you can see a promotional video about their network HERE.
I checked out the website and immediately noticed that it is all only in Hebrew. There is no parallel website in English, Russian, French or any other language. It looks as though they are only looking to serve their constituents. Other than that, they have all their material, i.e., documents and procedures for opening a case, Shtar Borerut, Tofes Tviah, Ktav Haganah, appeals, wills, Hetter Iska, Pruzbuls, even contracts for real estate purchases and rentals, available for download on their new improved website. Plus, they have a few docs with vital information (educational material) to help the "consumers" to navigate the system.
This is precisely what I am after. There is still something missing, but I will get to it later. (I do not mean the rating system.)
I contacted them for more information. I had a lengthy and productive conversation with one of the office secretaries, Geveret Y. B. She was friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. She told me that the main motives for setting this up was to make Beis Din as transparent and orderly as the secular courts and to offer a court of appeals. Another thing was to ensure that a court case can be resolved in a reasonable time frame. They aim to reach a ruling within three months.
These things are deficient in the independent Batei Din for Mammonos and this lack is what holds back religious Jews from wanting to go to the Batei Din instead of the courts. They want to make Beis Din every religious Jew’s priority.
I asked her why the leading Chardali Beis Din in Yerushalayim, Eretz Chemda, is not part of their network. She responded that all the associated Batei Din need to conform with the standards and protocols of the Irgun. Eretz Chemda, which is a force in itself, did not want to subjugate their independence to an umbrella organization. They still have a good working relationship.
I also had a brief conversation with Rav Nir Aviv, the founder. I asked how many Batei Din they have now, and the answer is close to 30.
I asked him why all of their information is in Hebrew and they do not have any accommodations for folks who don’t have Hebrew as their first language. He said he hopes to be able to expand in languages eventually. Most of his chevra know nothing but Hebrew.
I asked if he tried to recruit any black-hat charedi Batei Din to his network. He said that he hasn’t made moves in that direction, but he would be more than happy if they want to join up. He did add that it is not uncommon for us black-hat chareidim to make use of his Batei Din. Aside from the features of an appeals court, there is much more neutrality if they go there since, in the chareidi Batei Din, everybody knows or is related to somebody.
I asked him if he knows my brother-in-law’s brother who happens to be the Rav of Kochav Yaakov. He does.
Lastly, I asked him about the “missing something” that I mentioned several paragraphs back. He said that this would be opening a Pandora’s box, but he is willing to listen to what I had in mind.
In any case, in my opinion, this organization is truly L’Chatchila. As I said, it comprises most of what I want to see in this regulatory body. I am excited about it and sincerely wish it growing success. We really need it.
When I say,” We really need it”, I mean the royal “We”. We need this in the black-hat chareidi world. In my opinion, their system is real L’Chatchila and ours is Bediavad. I would be very happy to see a list of black-hat chareidi Batei Din joining their network, maybe as a separate lineup. If not that, then to establish a network of our own.
This is what Project Emesh is all about.
And now, just what is this mystery missing element that I want to see adopted by all Batei Din? The one that would be opening a Pandora’s box?
It is a more comprehensive and user-friendly Shtar Borrerut (Arbitration agreement).
Most people who have never been to Beis Din have no clue what a Shtar Borrerut is, why it is necessary, why it is so important, and why it is so dangerous. They didn’t learn anything about it in Sanhedrin or Bava Metziah. They did not exist in the old days.
How, why, and when did these turn up? What’s wrong with them, and how can we fix them?
This is the main subject of my upcoming posts.
Stay tuned for the Pandora’s box.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment