Hi,
Please find the article below and the excerpts a wake up rally! I would absolutely recommend that you give birth in America to maximize giving your child the best life you can. You may even gain some respect in the eyes of your husband. And that could turn your whole situation around! As someone noted, he can be a part of the birth. If he won't even make the journey to the States, I doubt he will make the journey of Fatherhood. And it's better to find out on your terms than his (meaning not being stuck in another country where you will not be taken seriously-see below).
Is he planning to be at the birth? What if he isn't? Would you then at that moment wish you had your options! Because then, it will be too late:(:(
Divorce in Israel: Men get the final word | csmonitor.com
Divorce in Israel: Men get the final word
JERUSALEM –
It's been nearly three years since Ariela Dadon began trying to divorce her abusive husband. But she can't gain her freedom or the right to remarry because her estranged husband has refused to grant her a get, a Jewish divorce writ that can only be given by a man to his wife - never the other way around. "We and others who are denied a get are like
prisoners who can't get a pardon," says Ms. Dadon, who is raising two small children while she puts herself through graduate school in accounting.
She also makes endless visits to religious courts in a bid to get the judges to force her husband's hand. The catch: He won't do so unless she forfeits child support, among other demands. Groups such as Mevoi Satum, a nongovernmental organization whose name means "Dead End," says there are thousands of women here like Dadon. While rights groups have lobbied for it, neither civil marriage nor divorce exist in Israel.
The Israeli rabbinate acknowledges only that there are between a few dozen to up to 200 cases at any given time. But the Rabbinate - which holds sway over the religious life of Israel's Jewish majority, governing everything from birth to burial, was to hold a groundbreaking conference here Tuesday to address the problem. Last week, however, it cancelled the event - which had been tailored to ultra-Orthodox guidelines of a closed session, no women, and no media. The move was widely seen as caving to pressure from ultra-Orthodox leaders, though no reason was given.
...
Shula Kadourie, a mother of six who recently got her divorce after a four-year wait, says that the way she was treated in the process
damaged her faith. It also made her wonder if she weren't living in more of a theocracy than a democracy, like many others in the Middle East. In court visits, she was regularly told to sit and be quiet; the judge was interested in hearing her husband's side of the story only.
...
"Israel is the only country in the world where there wasn't supposed to be an issue of [Jewish] women stuck waiting for a get," Ms. Azaria says.
...
Dadon, who had her last court appointment three days ago, is still waiting. "To give up my demand for alimony, fine, but I won't give up on behalf of my kids, on getting them the support they need," she says. In some court visits, judges have asked her for evidence. She included police reports after several instances of physical abuse.