A special meeting was scheduled to take place on Tuesday in the office of Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Dovid Lau, with the European Union’s Ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, and the European Union Special Envoy for Religious Freedom, Jan Figel.

The meeting was set up after EU representatives submitted their request through the Foreign Ministry for their desire to meet with the Chief Rabbi for his decision on various religious issues.

The Chief Rabbi, who presided over the composition of the Supreme Beis Din on Tuesday, was in the midst of a discussion of a complex case of and agunah, which has been going on for many years, and a short time before the planned meeting, the Chief Rabbi saw that there was a special opportunity to bring the eight-year-old case to an end.

The Chief Rabbi instructed his office to cancel the entire agenda that was intended to bring the complex case to completion and to grant a get. He remained committed to freeing the agunah and was unwilling to give up the opportunity at hand. Indeed, after many hours, the efforts of Rav Lau, together with the other dayanim, Rabbi Eliezer Igra and Rabbi Aharon Katz, bore fruit, and the longed-for divorce was granted B’chasdei Hashem.

The European Union’s representatives, who received surprise and brief notice of the cancellation of the meeting, and after they understood the reason for canceling the meeting, they announced that they would not relinquish the meeting, which they hope will be in the coming days, but they will not schedule on a day the beis din is in session.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)