Maintenance / Child Support

While nothing can be done to enforce a Jewish spouse’s consent to divorce ,even if written , as this would invalidate the ‘get’ which must be given and accepted out of free will, a wife’s obligation to forego her maintenance will still hold. Thus her husband will be free of any obligation to pay her maintenance.

Yes, if she filed for her maintenance during their marriage, and can prove that she was justified in leaving the marital home, then at the end of the maintenance proceedings , it is possible that the court will award a lump sum for the period from when she filed the plea until they were divorced, taking into account anything awarded to her temporarily.

In this situation the wife can file her husband for maintenance at the family court, and, if relevant, also for the division of marital property. Later on she can consider whether she wants to initiate proceedings to end their marriage.

Not an automatic one – it could depend on the relative financial positions of her and her husband!

If the husband is not Jewish, but is Moslem or Druze, or a member of one of the other recognized faiths in Israel with its own court system, then his maintenance obligation towards his wife will be governed by the personal law applying to him.

If, however, his personal law does not oblige him to support his wife, or he has no personal law (if, for example, he has no religion), then civil law will apply. Under the Family Law Amendment (Maintenance) Act of 1959,which only applies to married couples, a husband is in principle obliged to support his wife but her income from employment or other sources is taken into account.

No! The rabbinical court cannot refuse to wife out a plea filed by a wife, herself, for her own maintenance at any stage in the proceedings, if she requests it, but especially when no defence has even been filed. Furthermore, even if the husband objects this is irrelevant – where the wife filed the plea and asks for it to be struck out. However, sometimes, despite all this, the rabbinical court does not rush to strike out a plea, or close the file, so that jurisdiction remains with it. The husband – the defendant – may object to the withdrawal of the plea/closure of the file, to try and preserve jurisdiction at the rabbinical court.

Ultimately, no because according to the Civil Procedure Rules an extradition order will take precedence over an order to prevent someone leaving Israel given within the framework of civil proceedings. If the husband has filed a defence to the maintenance plea already, then the wife could file for temporary maintenance, and even ask for an emergency decision, in the light of the extradition proceedings. Even if the husband is extradited, if even a temporary decision is made on maintenance, and the husband has not left property in Israel, from which maintenance can be paid, the wife can file his family for maintenance, based on the ruling.

Not according to a judgment by Tel Aviv Family Court some years ago which refused a plea for maintenance from a separated wife who on the one hand refused to divorce her husband and on the other refused to reconcile the marriage by filing for ‘shlom bayit’ at the rabbinical court. The husband had left home a few years previously, allegedly because of the wife’s shouting.

In theory the linkage of maintenance to the cost of living should work both ways ; when the cost of living index goes up, so should the absolute amount of maintenance paid and when it does down, so should the amount of maintenance paid.

No!

An intention to live abroad permanently does not, in itself, deprive a wife of her right to maintenance. On the other hand it does not reduce her earning potential, and that is the main test the court uses to determine the level of maintenance it will set for a wife. The court will take into account the circumstances for the wife stopping work – whether she was fired, or handed in her notice- and whether she is entitled to unemployment benefit when it sets a sum.