Likud’s Glick says he reconciled with female MKs after inviting man who refuses get

Likud MK Yehudah Glick says he has reconciled with female lawmakers who snubbed his speech earlier this week over his Knesset invitation to a man who has refused his wife a get, religious bill of divorce, for over two years.

Glick, speaking in the Knesset plenum, says he can’t elaborate on the details of the case and declines to explain why he invited Yaron Atias, 39, for a meeting in Israel’s parliament.

The Likud lawmaker says he privately explained the situation to the MKs who walked out of his address, and maintains he is “aware of the sensitivity” of the issue. He also criticizes the female lawmakers’ behavior as “unfair.”

Some of the lawmakers who protested the invite, including Zionist Union MK Revital Swid, apologized on Wednesday, he says.

Swid, who is chairing the session, interjects that she apologized if she offended him, but did not regret the walkout.

Later addressing the plenum, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan of the Jewish Home party says he’s also coordinating with Atias to secure a divorce.

In a step it rarely takes, a district rabbinical court in the northern city of Haifa permitted Atias’s photograph and various details to be made public and called on the public to ostracize him in order to pressure him to grant the divorce sought by his wife, Mazal, who is currently living with her children in the north of Israel.

The court ruled people should not talk to him or do business with him, not host him, not visit him when he is sick, not grant him a public role in synagogue, not pray for him if he dies, not show him any respect, and stay away from him as much as possible.

— Marissa Newman