TRANSITIONS
‘A bittersweet decision’: Center for Women’s Justice will close when founder retires in coming months
CJW's main focus for its remaining time will be on preserving knowledge and resources to ensure their agreements and legal precedents remain accessible.

Rachel Markowitz Bader/Center for Women's Justice
Team members of the Center for Women's Justice, a legal advocacy NGO advancing the civil and religious liberties of Israeli women.
After more than 20 years of operations, the Israeli Center for Women’s Justice — one of the country’s most active legal nonprofits that advocates for greater freedom from state religious authorities — has announced will shut down in the coming months as its founder and leader Susan Weiss retires.
A final closing date has yet to be determined, according to Sarah Craimer, CWJ’s executive committee chair.
“After careful consideration of next steps and how best to maximize resources, CWJ has made the bittersweet decision to wind up our activities and pass the baton to the many groups and activists we have empowered and inspired,” CWJ said in a Dec. 26 statement announcing the closing.
Since its founding 2004, CWJ has functioned as an “expressly feminist advocacy organization working at the intersection of religion, democracy and women’s rights, entrenching social change via innovative legal tools,” Rachel Stomel, a CWJ spokesperson, told eJewishPhilanthropy in a written response to questions.
“While it was largely Susan’s vision that fueled the organization, Susan was able to cultivate a talented and committed staff that will continue to advance CWJ values in other frameworks,” she said.
CWJ has focused its efforts in both secular and religious courts, dealing with issues related to women whose recalcitrant husbands can’t or won’t grant them a religious divorce, or get; mamzerim, who according to Jewish law are born out of certain forbidden relationships and can only marry other mamzerim and can therefore be tracked on a state marriage blacklist and denied legal rights; female converts and immigrants subjected to “Jewishness investigations”; and women denied access to public services, spaces or opportunities due to “modesty” or religious claims.
Weiss pioneered creative legal strategies that initially were considered long shots — such as suing recalcitrant husbands for damages in civil court — but which have since become standard practice by lawyers in Israel and abroad, Stomel noted.
“While no other organization focuses on our unique combination, there are excellent and effective organizations that are doing good work on the various elements of what we did. With funding tight and the High Court [of Justice] facing unprecedented pressure, we felt that the timing was right to pass the baton,” Stomel said.
The organization has informed funders about their closure, and its main focus will now be on preserving knowledge and resources to ensure their agreements and legal precedents remain accessible, she added. One such legal precedent is the CWJ halachic prenuptial agreements for the prevention of “chained women,” designed for Jewish couples marrying according to halacha. It addresses the halachic challenges of both mesuravot get (when a husband refuses to grant a get) and agunot (when a husband is unable to grant a get).
Funds collected to date are being used to cover a new podcast, salaries, website revisions and closing costs, Stomel said.
CWJ has partnered with similar organizations, such as Itim and Ne’emanei Torah V’Avoda-Kolech, as well as a number of private lawyers, to take on its few remaining open legal cases. A complex mamzer case was brought to resolution last week by a private attorney whom they contracted to take over the case, she noted.
“We see this as a testament to our success that we’re no longer the only organization that is willing and has the expertise to take on these types of complex — and often controversial — cases. This was not the case when we opened two decades ago. There has been a sea change when it comes to religion-state issues and the violation of women’s rights, and we’re proud to have been key players in that change,” Stomel said.
Chuppot, an organization that performs halachic weddings outside the purview of the state rabbinate, will continue to use and promote CWJ’s halachic prenuptial agreements, which it requires all of its couples to sign, she noted. Other organizations that will continue to promote the agreement in various forms include Mavoi Satum, Yad La’Isha, Kolech, Itim and Havaya. A volunteer group of attorneys who facilitate the halachic prenup signings free of charge is also making plans to continue that initiative independently of CWJ, Stomel said.
CWJ has also been archiving its materials with the Haifa Feminist Institute and the Van Leer Institute’s Yodaat Center, revising its website to serve as a resource for people who want to use or build upon CWJ’s casework, knowledge base and multimedia resources, and coordinating with additional organizations to continue its activities, including the adoption of a new prenuptial provision that avoids halitza, a process in rabbinical Judaism by which a childless widow and the brother of her deceased husband can avoid the duty to marry.
Additionally, CWJ is recording and promoting a new English-language podcast series, “Justice Unbound,” which chronicles key CWJ client stories alongside legal, halachic and social analysis. They will also continue to publish articles addressing solutions to timely issues, said Stomel. One such recent contribution by CWJ board member Rivkah Lubitch addressed the challenges and solutions to halitza, mikveh rights and agreements to prevent agunot.
Even as it prepares to close, CWJ is still in the middle of a campaign to promote its shtar bitachon, a halachic document created by CWJ attorney Nitzan Caspi
Shilony in 2018, which has surged in relevance in light of the war in Israel. Essentially a halachic power of attorney, the document protects married women from becoming agunot if their husbands become incapacitated, which is particularly relevant for soldiers, Stomel said. After being pressured at a Knesset committee meeting, the army is currently also considering encouraging soldiers to sign the document, she added.
“Most importantly, we would like others to be able to leverage the strides we have made in creating novel legal approaches to address violations of women’s rights resulting from Israel’s entanglement of religion and state. And ideally, work toward separating that entanglement entirely,” she said.