Husband Presents Secret Recordings Alleging Wife's Infidelity in Religious Court Dispute Over Ketubah

A couple married since 2014, with three daughters, is embroiled in a dispute over the wife's ketubah (marriage contract) valued at 180,000 shekels. After more than a decade of marriage, the wife left the home in December last year and filed for divorce and her ketubah payment. The husband responded by accusing her of infidelity, which he claims voids her right to the ketubah.

To support his claim, the husband submitted hours of audio recordings to the Be'er Sheva Rabbinical Court, allegedly capturing the wife speaking with a mysterious man, purportedly her lover. Some conversations were whispered and took place late at night. The husband refused to provide the original audio files to the wife before the hearing, intending to "surprise" her with the evidence during the trial.

The wife, represented by attorneys Shlomi and Ronit Atias, denied the infidelity allegations and requested access to the recordings to properly defend herself. She argued that Israeli law and Jewish law require disclosure of relevant evidence to ensure a fair trial, rejecting the concept of a "right to surprise." However, the rabbinical judges, including Chief Judge Aharon Dershvitz, Rabbi Ovadia Hefetz Yaakov, and Rabbi Avraham Tzvi Gauftman, rejected her request. They ruled that rabbinical courts are not bound by civil procedural rules mandating pre-trial evidence disclosure and found no legal basis for the wife’s claim.

The judges emphasized the need to balance the wife's legitimate interest in reviewing the recordings against concerns she might manipulate the evidence to obstruct truth-finding. They ruled the husband is not obligated to share the recordings before the hearing but may need to do so afterward. They also noted that if the recordings were obtained by violating the wife's privacy, their admissibility would be questionable, and the husband would have to prove infidelity by other means.

The case highlights tensions between evidentiary standards in rabbinical courts and civil law principles, with the wife’s legal team continuing to challenge the handling of evidence in the ongoing ketubah dispute.