Divorce Mediation in Israel Gains Acceptance

Children are devastated by divorce. Mediation can help ease their pain
and reduce both short term and long term emotional and mental adverse affects.

Ra'anana, Israel----February 17.....In recent years divorce mediation has gained momentum as the channel through which divorcing couples work through their divorce agreement in Israel, the US and throughout Europe. Divorce mediation encompasses all the aspects of how family life will proceed after a divorce.

Even the Israel court system now recognizes that mediation is the ideal way to pave the way for the breakup of the family when that is the choice that the couple has taken. The devastating, long term adverse ramifications of a divorce are great on all family members and mediation is now being embraced as the most effective means to ease the pain of the process.

Israel courts have their lists of approved mediators who have relevant professional backgrounds in the mental health field and who have taken required mediation courses. More and more as of late, Israeli courts have been referring divorcing couples to their approved mediators in an effort to have couples work out their divorce agreement through that process.

When couples go to a mediator the attempt is made to reach agreement on issues such as visitations with the children, child support, division of property, communication between the parents, and ground rules relating to all of the above. With the guidance of a neutral mediator who is knowledgeable about both court processes and child development, the divorcing couple can discuss their concerns and negotiate a working arrangement which both can live with.

The atmosphere of mutual respect and consideration of each other’s needs, which is cultivated by the mediator, creates a creative and constructive problem-solving approach which leads to good practical solutions. These solutions would most probably not have been arrived at if the couple had brought their issues to the courtroom arena with antagonistic divorce lawyers.

When a couple divorces through divorce lawyers the level of conflict is exacerbated in the attempt of each lawyer to prove their client’s goodness while exaggerating the ex-spouse’s negatives in order to gain the rights of his client. The need to “win in court” will cause even minor differences between the ex-spouses to be magnified in the battle to gain more time with children, more rights to property, and a “better” divorce settlement.

Whatever is won, however, is lost in the ensuing hostile relationship between the ex-couple and the terrible negative emotional impact on the children, of all ages. There is no price tag on the deep and damaging feelings of confusion, loss, betrayal, and conflict which are imprinted in children of a hostile divorce but the price paid is an extremely high one which loving parents should seek with all their might to avoid paying.

In Israel there is a dual court system – the religious courts and the civil courts, each with its own distinct advantages to divorcing men and women. When a spouse sues the other for a divorce settlement, the court system that receives the suit first is the system that decides the end result. Since each lawyer wants to ensure that his client gets the “best deal”, Israel lawyers usually encourage their clients to race to the court of choice, where they think their case will be favored, and start the process of litigation. Divorce attorneys discourage healthy communication taking the stance that both sides are at war and what they say can be used against the other spouse.

The option of mediation gets overrun in the process, to the detriment of the whole family. When the angry spouses are afterwards then possibly referred to mediation, the baseline of their conflict has been raised considerably higher, making the process all the more difficult, draining, and tedious. In extremely hostile divorces where mediation does not exist the couple may experience many sleepless nights after encountering police, attorneys, judges, marshall's office, private detectives, financial debt and most importantly their children who are now at high risk for regression, depression and abnormal emotional and mental development.

It is best when couples agree to go to mediation before any litigation is started by either side. If a court process has already been started and then the couple goes to a mediator, the mediation will proceed on the condition that the legal process is frozen so that neither party will make decisions under the threat of a looming deadline.

In Israel, with the increase in the divorce rate and lawyers’ fees and the overcrowding of courtroom calendars, more and more divorcing couples are seeking and being referred by the courts to divorce mediation. A change in Israeli law now allows “no fault” divorce, whereas before, one side of the marriage had to prove guilt or betrayal that would justify the divorce. With the change, no wrongdoing by either side has to be proven.

Outside of Israel it is enough that one party seeks a divorce in order for the marriage to be dismantled. In Israel, however, it must be the desires of both parties to terminate the marriage. Judaism has always related very seriously to the issue of marriage. Two people must agree to it in the first place and you must have both partners wishing to end it. (Even in biblical times a man could not marry off his daughter without her consent, learned from Betuel asking Rivka if she agreed to marry Isaac).

The disadvantage of needing mutual consent to the divorce is that then the one who wants the divorce has less power than the one who doesn’t want it. The former will have to give a lot to the latter in order to get the needed consent if there was reluctance. This sets the stage for “bargaining” and exaggerated demands from the reluctant partner.

Abroad, because one partner cannot prevent the breakup, the couple will more readily go to mediation in order to work out the best terms. In Israel, on the other hand, because one party can prevent the divorce, the couple will not run so fast to mediation and will more readily use lawyers to extract more assets from the partner.

Mediation developed as an alternative so that couples could divorce in a respectable way. The traditional way of divorcing in the court destroyed families instead of serving them. In a divorce, the original one unit family becomes two separate entities and planning is needed so that both will be self-supporting and emotionally stable. There are proactive and preventive aspects in anticipating future problems and outlining solutions in advance (such as how visitations and sleepovers will change as a young child gets older). These are dealt with in mediation and not typically in the courtroom.

With recognition of how mediation can help families cope with divorce in a much healthier and calmer way and how it can help maintain a low state of conflict rather than exacerbating it, it is foreseen that more and more divorcing couples will seek that process as their modality of choice when the decision has been made to break up the family.

The writer, Sara Silber, herself an Israel court certified family and divorce mediator, is a co-coordinator of a new group in Israel - a Family Mediation Team - which has been organized to provide all necessary services related to a comprehensive divorce settlement. The team’s members are professionals in the mental health area - family and marriage therapists, clinical and organizational psychologists and counselors and cover large geographic segments of the country. On the team are lawyers, actuaries, property and tax assessors, all of whom have had mediation training. The Family Mediation Team, which will function under the Silpar Mediation Center, under the mediation portal Sulcha, will take much of the stress out of the process of getting to the final divorce settlement.

With mental health professional as mediators, couples in the divorcing process will see and take into account how each step they each take will affect the well being of their joint children and their long term adjustment. Educated choices can be made and each parent can then feel that they did the most damage control they could possibly do to protect the ones they love. And that,is what parenting needs to be.

Sara Silber, M.Sc.Ed, is a Certified Family and Marriage Therapist, an Educational Psychologist Specialist, and a Business and Divorce Mediator. Her private practice, established in 1981, is located in Raanana, Israel.