Facebook reaches rabbinical court

Woman convinces rabbinical court that Facebook correspondence is infidelity

A woman who presented the rabbinical court with extremely suggestive correspondence between her husband and other women on Facebook convinced judges that his actions constitute infidelity.

The court subsequently ruled that the husband must pay damages of NIS 150,000 shekels (roughly $40,000.)

The man and woman, who are both in their 30s, met on a dating website. After some months they decided to turn a new leaf in their lives, get married and raise together their children from previous marriages.

Yet six months after the marriage, the woman discovered that the husband continued to correspond with other women on the dating websites and on Facebook and decided to divorce him.

At court, the woman accused the husband of causing the marriage to fail. “He had physiological problems in bed,” she told judges. “He refused to take pills, drank alcohol and smoked pot.”

The woman also charged that for a long time the husband avoided looking for work, instead spending long hours in front of the computer. The husband for his part claimed that his wife refused to have marital relations with him.

“She would not shower, and had telephone conversations with another man,” he claimed.

Attorney Amir Zvulun, who represented the woman, presented the rabbinical court with extremely suggestive correspondence from the man to other women on Facebook to prove that he was unfaithful to his wife.

Rabbinical court judges said the husband’s response to the wife’s accusations proved that he admitted to what he did. His claim that he was not caught “with his pants down” was rejected by the court.

The judges ruled that the husband caused the failure of the marriage and in a precedent setting ruling ordered him to pay damages.