A recent decision by the Supreme Rabbinic Court has set back women's legal rights in divorce cases by decades, claim feminist advocacy groups. However, a rabbinic court legal adviser says the decision is not new, but based on ancient Jewish texts and a long tradition that cannot be contested

the supreme rabbinic court ruled that it was unlawful for a woman in the middle of divorce proceedings in a rabbinic court to appeal to a civil court to speed up the divorce's conclusion

The court's ruling illustrates the tension between religion and state and the ongoing power struggle for jurisdiction between secular and religious courts

All Jewish couples in the country must marry and divorce according to Jewish law. Rabbinic courts oversee the divorce process

some

can be settled in special civil family courts

Jewish law, a Jewish woman may not remarry until her husband agrees to give her a writ of divorce

women, known as agunot or "chained" women, have been held captive by their intransigent husbands