A group of religious women have decided that they had enough with an indifferent male rabbinical establishment and have decided to use lawyers to grade the judges' decisions.
Public protests organized by groups like Mavoi Satum and Yad La'Isha (The Max Morrison Legal Aid Center and Hotline) have been making headway, especially with the release of the Anat Zuria's documentary "Bretrothed."
The film follows the legal and emotional struggle of three women, refused a divorce by their husbands, in the face of rabbinic indifference.
With the screening of the film, Mavoi Satum's Batya Kahane-Dror presented the idea of grading rabbinical judges on their work and legal opinions.
"The courts are the ones who creating the problem of women being refused divorces, their conservatism is creating this," Kahane-Dror said. "We want to examine the rabbinic judges just like regular judges are reviewed. The system doesn't fix itself."
This coming Monday, Mavoi Satum will hold a meeting with Chief Rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar, who also hold their position of presidents of the rabbinical courts.
The meeting will also be attended by the State Comptroller, Knesset members, Justice Ministry representatives and judiciary ombudsman and retired judge Tova Strasberg-Cohen.
"We'll ask the chief rabbis why they don't force through divorces and why women have to wait years for a divorce," Kahane-Dror said. "There's a lot of conservatism in the courts. Despite the fact that there are Halachic solutions, the judges always choose the strict line."
Raut Giat, a female rabbinic lawyer who appears in "Betrothed," said that there are judges who do not rule along narrow, ultra-Orthodox lines, "but they are the minority."
The groups expect to pay a high price for their idea of grading judges. If the idea caused bitter feelings between the Israel Bar Association and Supreme Court justices, then the idea would surely cause a ripple or two within the religious world.
Still, Giat said, "I don't think the position of the women can get any worse than it is today. They are used, exploited. They have no identity. Therefore, it (grading judges) will help more than it will hurt."
