For three years, M. cruelly abused and sexually assaulted a young boy, often two or three times a week. A large kippah covered the head of this man, M., who used an innocent boy to satisfy his abominable urges. For many years, M., who was a personal driver for a well-known rabbi, also officiated at many weddings as a witness, following the normal routine where he would arrive at the wedding, with his large kippah testament to the fact that he was religious, and he was therefore considered a "kosher" witness.
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One day the boy summoned the courage to put an end to the abuse. A few years later he succeeded in filing a complaint against his abuser and won a conviction in court. M. was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, with the verdict that "the defendant is manipulative and unreliable, avoided dealing with the offenses and acts he committed, all the while presenting himself as a victim, focusing on himself and expressing no empathy towards the complainant".
It later became apparent that after three years of marriage following one of the weddings where M., (now a convicted pedophile) had acted as a witness, the husband fled abroad and left his wife an Aguna. The woman, who is represented by us at Mavoi Satum, has applied to the bet din to have the marriage annulled, since a pedophile is still a pedophile no matter how large his kippah may be, and a pedophile cannot be a kosher witness. Therefore, without a kosher witness, the marriage ceremony was invalid.
The bet din summoned M., the witness, to testify, even though he is has a criminal conviction for pedophilia offenses and the facts of his conviction are not disputed. In contrast to the proceedings in the court, where M. confessed to the acts, in front of the bet din he claimed that he never actually committed any abusive acts and that every night before he went to sleep he would say a confession (vidui before G-d) and apologize to anyone whom he may have harmed, and so these acts (which he claims he didn't do) would be forgiven. Miraculously, the bet din ruled that this convicted pedophile is a kosher witness and the marriage is valid.
The truth is that the problem is not the pedophile witness, who brazenly lies. The real problem is the approach of the rabbinical court, whose decision is an injustice that cries out to heaven – a violation of a woman's choice, whose only wish is to divorce her husband, the husband who left her and hasn't been seen for ten years, to move on with her life, and to have children before her time runs out.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef once annulled a marriage on the grounds that the witness was a lawyer who litigated in the courts of the land, called "courts of the gentiles," since they do not rule according to the law of the Torah.
Although Rav Ovadia was well known for releasing agunot, he wasn't alone in doing so. Great rabbinical authorities of all generations have gone out of their way to alleviate the plight of agunot and mamzerim, using obscure justifications to allow this. In this case, the court chose to use obscure justifications not to free the agunah, but to keep her chained.
On Wednesday, a petition was heard that we submitted to the High Court in the pedophile witness case. We are requesting an explanation from the bet din as to why the dayanim chose to try every avenue in preventing the pedophile witness from being disqualified, in direct opposition to the halachic practice of generations for releasing agunot and mamzerim. Why was the witness's abusive behavior diminished, when doing so directly harms the woman's chances of being saved from her chained marriage? And the biggest question that reaches the very heart of the matter – how can it be, that such grave offenses as pedophilia and repeated sexual assault of a young boy is considered no more serious than the desecration of the Sabbath, keeping kosher, or representation in "gentile courts?"
The bet din erred when it voted to pronounce a heinous sex offender "kosher", even when it was clear that this kosher stamp is fake, and for the aguna, validating the pedophile as a witness means a tragic choice between a life of loneliness and a life of sin. Instead of putting an end to this horrific story, the bet din chose to leave this woman in chains. We hope that salvation may come from the High Court.
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