From Haaretz: The passage of a new law effectively criminalizing Orthodox men’s refusal to grant their wives a religious divorce has polarized the British Jewish community, pitting women’s advocates against a religious court system which claims that the legislation has inadvertently complicated efforts to free women trapped in broken marriages.

According to the religious court, a writ of divorce “given under duress, whether due to physical threats, financial threats or the threat of imprisonment, is absolutely invalid,” under halakha, or religious law.

Members of the Orthodox community should be advised, it said, that initiating criminal prosecution in secular courts without getting written authorization from a rabbinical court means that said rabbinical court will not be able to halakhically arrange a get.

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