Jewish Prenup in Florida: The Halachic Prenup and Your Civil Prenup

What Is a Halachic Prenup?

The problem the halachic prenup solves has a name, agunah (literally a chained woman). Under Jewish law a marriage ends only when the husband gives and the wife accepts a get, the Jewish divorce document. A civil divorce does not end the religious marriage, so a spouse who refuses to give or accept a get can keep the other spouse from remarrying within the community for years, and sometimes uses that refusal to win money or custody concessions in the civil case.

The halachic prenup prevents that with 2 promises, made before the wedding when both people want the marriage to work.

1. An agreement to arbitrate. Both spouses agree that if they stop living together as husband and wife, a named beth din (a rabbinical court) has exclusive authority to decide the get and any dispute over the ketubah (the Jewish marriage contract) and the tena’im (the traditional premarital agreement). The Beth Din of America’s own instructions say the signed form is enforceable as a binding arbitration agreement in American courts as well as under halacha.
2. A daily support obligation. Under the Beth Din of America’s standard form, revised November 2018, the husband obligates himself to support his wife at $150 a day, adjusted each year for inflation from the wedding date, starting on the day they stop living together and continuing for as long as they remain married under Jewish law. Once the get is given, the obligation ends. At $150 a day the figure is $54,750 a year before any inflation adjustment.

The wife’s side is built so the agreement cannot be turned against the spouse it protects. Her right to the daily support ends if she refuses to appear before the beth din on due notice or refuses to follow its decision, and she waives any amount for the period before she sends a notarized written notice that she intends to collect. The husband’s promise is made binding under Jewish law by a kinyan (a formal act of acquisition), performed before rabbis as the form recites.

Your rabbi decides which version you sign. The Beth Din of America has issued later editions, a postnuptial version for couples already married, and versions for couples who will live in Israel, and some rabbinic authorities use a different form altogether. Kevin works from whichever form your rabbi approves.

How Is It Different From a Florida Prenup?

A Florida civil prenup is a contract under Florida’s premarital agreement act. A civil prenup decides what stays separate and what becomes marital, how debts are handled, whether either spouse can claim alimony, and what each spouse can claim from the other’s estate at death. Florida requires the agreement in writing and signed by both people, and enforces it without any consideration beyond the marriage itself. No prenup of either kind can fix child support in advance. Florida prenuptial agreements covers the civil document in full.

The halachic prenup does a different job. The standard form decides the get and the daily support obligation, and on its own terms leaves property division and maintenance to Florida law unless the couple initials an optional clause sending property to the beth din. The form also waives each spouse’s right to financial disclosure, and contains no waiver of any right at death.

Most couples with a home, a business, children from an earlier marriage or an expected inheritance sign both. The halachic prenup keeps either spouse from being chained, and the civil prenup keeps the money questions out of Florida’s default rules, under which a divorce court starts from an equal split of marital property and a surviving spouse can claim 30 percent of the estate.

Two terms of the standard form need a Florida answer before anyone signs. The first is the optional clause letting the beth din divide property and set maintenance, which can conflict with the property terms of the civil prenup, so the couple picks one forum for property and both documents say the same thing. The second is the optional clause sending custody and child support to the beth din. Florida’s arbitration code does not apply to any dispute over child custody, visitation or child support, so a Florida court keeps those decisions whatever the form says.

The civil prenup also has to stand on its own. The standard form sends questions about its own validity to the beth din, while Florida law makes the fairness of a civil premarital agreement a question for the judge. The civil prenup is therefore drafted, disclosed and signed as if the halachic form did not exist, with full financial schedules attached even though the halachic form waives them.

Will a Florida Court Enforce a Beth Din Agreement?

People ask me whether a Florida court will enforce the form, and the honest answer is that no Florida appellate court has ruled on a halachic prenup, and I will not tell you that one has. What the Florida cases decide is narrower, and taken together they explain why the form is built the way it is.

A Florida court will not order a get. In 1966 a Florida divorce judge ordered a husband to cooperate in obtaining a Jewish divorce. The Third District Court of Appeal struck that paragraph, explaining that Florida law provides for only a civil divorce and that “there is no authorization for a chancellor to require the parties to secure a religious divorce.” Later Florida decisions repeat that a court lacks authority to order a spouse to take part in a religious ceremony. In 1991 the Fourth District affirmed an order requiring a husband to approve his wife’s application for a get, and the reason was that he had not opposed it in the trial court and had testified he would agree to it if he got the property he wanted. In 1997 the Third District held that a judge may reserve the power to revisit alimony and property terms, on a showing of changed circumstances, if a husband does not start the get process within 15 days, while still holding that the judge cannot order the get itself.

A Florida court applies contract law to the secular terms of a religious marriage contract. A Muslim couple married in Tampa in 1991 the day after signing a sadaq, an Islamic premarital agreement promising the wife $50,001, with $1 paid at signing and $50,000 deferred. The trial judge refused to enforce it. In 1996 the Second District reversed and held that “Florida contract law applies to the secular terms of the sadaq,” and directed judgment for the wife. The halachic prenup’s daily support figure is the same kind of secular term, a fixed dollar amount a court can read without deciding any question of religious law.

A Florida court presumes in favor of arbitration, including religious arbitration. Florida’s arbitration code makes a written agreement to arbitrate valid, enforceable and irrevocable except on a ground that would undo any contract, lets a party ask the court to order arbitration when the other side refuses, and directs the court to confirm an award unless it is vacated or corrected on the limited grounds the code lists. In 2013 the First District, enforcing an agreement to arbitrate under a Christian ministry’s rules, wrote that “This presumption extends to private religious arbitration, which is exceedingly common in our pluralistic religious society.” A Florida appeals court has also reviewed a beth din’s money award as an arbitration award, in a 1992 commercial case retold on the halachic estate planning page.

Put together, the Florida cases support a reasonable expectation, never a guarantee, that a Florida court would treat the halachic prenup the way it treats any agreement to arbitrate, by sending a refusing spouse to the beth din and confirming the beth din’s money award. The court would not order the get, and the form does not ask it to. A court could still refuse to enforce the support figure if it found the figure was a penalty for refusing a get rather than support, or if enforcing it required the court to decide a question of Jewish law, and no Florida court has decided either question for this form.

Practice pointer. The gap that sinks these agreements is a document that leaves a court to work out what Jewish law requires. Name one beth din, keep the fixed daily figure, and keep the money terms inside the arbitration, so that the only thing a Florida judge is ever asked to do is confirm an award.

What Courts in Other States Have Done

Decisions from other states do not bind a Florida court, but they are what a Florida judge would read first on a question Florida has not decided.

The leading case is from New York in 1983. A ketubah signed at a Jewish wedding recognized a named beth din’s authority to summon either spouse. After the civil divorce, the husband refused to appear, and the wife could not obtain a get. New York’s highest court, by a vote of 4 to 3, allowed her suit to compel his appearance to go forward, reasoning that “The present case can be decided solely upon the application of neutral principles of contract law, without reference to any religious principle.” The 3 dissenting judges would have dismissed it because deciding what the ketubah required meant consulting Jewish law.

Connecticut went the other way in 2023 on a different document. A rabbi and his wife had signed a ketubah agreeing to divorce according to Torah law, and in the divorce the husband asked the court to divide property under Jewish law. Each side filed affidavits from rabbis who disagreed about what Jewish law required. The Connecticut Supreme Court refused, holding that “requiring the court to go beyond the four corners of the document at issue in order to determine what Jewish law requires is a paradigmatic example of entanglement that runs afoul of the establishment clause.” The same opinion notes that commentators recommend a prenup with a beth din as the forum, written so that a court never has to interpret Jewish law, which is the design of the halachic prenup.

How the Halachic Prenup, the Civil Prenup and the Estate Plan Fit Together

The halachic prenup, the civil prenup and the estate plan are 3 documents signed at different times, and each one has a different author. Kevin’s job is to make them agree.

1. The halachic prenup. Your rabbi supplies the form, chooses the beth din and supervises the signing and the kinyan. Kevin reads the form your rabbi chose and flags any term that collides with the Florida documents, such as the optional property clause.
2. The Florida civil prenup. Kevin drafts it for one spouse, and the other spouse retains a separate lawyer, because one lawyer cannot represent both sides of the same agreement. The civil prenup states expressly which forum decides property, attaches full financial disclosure, and is signed well ahead of the wedding. A prenup signed under pressure in the days before a wedding is the classic target for an attack on voluntariness.
3. The death side. Florida lets a spouse waive the elective share, homestead, exempt property, the family allowance and the other rights of a surviving spouse before or after the marriage, but only in a written agreement signed by the waiving spouse in front of 2 subscribing witnesses. We sign it with 2 witnesses and a notary. Florida requires no financial disclosure for a waiver signed before the wedding, and requires fair disclosure from each spouse for one signed after. Whether a prenup applies at death explains the waiver in detail.
4. The halachic will. Once the couple has an estate plan, the halachic will (a shtar chatzi zachar) sits beside the Florida will or trust and makes the Florida plan binding under Jewish law. The beth din named in the halachic prenup should be the one named in the arbitration agreement that carries the halachic will, so a family never has 2 rabbinical courts with competing claims. Halachic estate planning explains that design.

One more Florida rule sits underneath all of these. A religious wedding in Florida without a Florida marriage license is not a valid marriage under Florida law, and a New York appeals court dismissed a divorce in 2023 for exactly that reason after a couple married in a Jewish religious ceremony in Florida, signed a ketubah and never obtained a license. The civil prenup, the waiver of rights at death and a Florida divorce court’s authority all depend on the civil marriage, so the license has to be obtained before the wedding.

What Kevin Does and What Your Rabbi Does

Kevin is a Florida attorney who understands the observant community, and he is not a rabbi, a posek or a member of any beth din. Whether a get is valid, whether the kinyan was done correctly, which version of the form to sign and whether your beth din will hold a hearing under it are questions for your rabbi. Kevin drafts and signs the Florida documents, reads the halachic form for conflicts with them, and coordinates with your rabbi so that neither system undoes the other.

What It Costs

The civil prenup is flat fee from $2,450 for one spouse, which covers the first draft, up to 2 rounds of revisions with the other spouse’s lawyer, the financial disclosure schedules, and a signing with 2 witnesses and a notary. A review of a civil prenup the other side drafted is flat fee from $750, and a postnup for a couple already married is flat fee from $2,950.

The halachic form comes from the beth din, and any fee for the beth din or for your rabbi’s time is theirs. Coordinating the prenup with a halachic will and a Florida estate plan is a flat fee quoted at consult. The Florida estate documents themselves are posted, with the will plan at flat fee from $1,200 for one person and $1,950 for a couple, and the trust plan at flat fee from $3,200 and $4,500.

Posted fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date (October 6, 2026 for prenups, September 2026 for estate plans). Government costs such as recording are additional and passed through at cost. A challenge to an existing agreement, a confirmation proceeding and any divorce litigation are quoted per matter and never carry a flat fee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The rabbi requires the form and the couple has real assets. The couple’s rabbi will not officiate without a signed halachic prenup, and the bride owns a condominium and a share of a family business. The halachic form is signed with the rabbi, and a civil prenup keeps the condominium and the business interest separate, with the property clause of the halachic form left uninitialed so that only one forum decides property.

A second marriage with children from the first. Both spouses want their own children to inherit their estates under a halachic will. The halachic prenup protects each of them from get refusal, and a waiver of rights at death signed in front of 2 witnesses keeps the 30 percent spousal claim from overriding either estate plan.

Sources of Law

• Premarital agreements: Fla. Stat. §61.079(3) (writing, signed by both parties, enforceable without consideration other than the marriage); §61.079(4) (permitted content); §61.079(7)(a) and (c) (grounds for unenforceability; unconscionability decided by the court as a matter of law).
• Waiver of rights at death: Fla. Stat. §732.702(1) (waiver of the elective share, intestate share, pretermitted share, homestead, exempt property and family allowance, before or after marriage, signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses) and §732.702(2) (no disclosure required for a waiver signed before marriage); §732.2065 (elective share of 30 percent).
• Revised Florida Arbitration Code: Fla. Stat. §682.02(1) (agreements to arbitrate valid, enforceable and irrevocable except on grounds for revocation of a contract); §682.03 (order compelling arbitration); §682.12 (confirmation of an award); §682.13 (vacating an award, 90 days); §682.25 (the chapter does not apply to disputes involving child custody, visitation or child support).
• Florida cases: Turner v. Turner, 192 So. 2d 787 (Fla. 3d DCA 1966), cert. denied, 201 So. 2d 233 (Fla. 1967); Fleischer v. Fleischer, 586 So. 2d 1253 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991); Bloch v. Bloch, 688 So. 2d 945 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997); Akileh v. Elchahal, 666 So. 2d 246 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996); Spivey v. Teen Challenge of Florida, Inc., 122 So. 3d 986 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013); Ainsworth v. Schoen, 606 So. 2d 1275 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992). Trial level, not binding: In re Marriage of Hodin, 37 Fla. Supp. 2d 186 (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. 1987) (final judgment ordering a husband to comply with the parties’ agreement to obtain a get).
• Other states, persuasive only: Avitzur v. Avitzur, 58 N.Y.2d 108 (1983); Tilsen v. Benson, 347 Conn. 758 (2023); Lang v. Levi, 198 Md. App. 154, 16 A.3d 980 (2011); Bernstein v. Benchemoun, 216 A.D.3d 893 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep’t 2023) (religious wedding in Florida without a Florida marriage license).
• The form: Beth Din of America and Rabbinical Council of America, Prenuptial Agreement, Standard Version, revised November 2018, ¶¶ I to VIII and instructions (retrieved 2026-06-04; later editions exist). Opinions read in full from the official text in the local CourtListener corpus. (retrieved 2026-10-06)

What a Beth Din Did With a $100-a-Day Clause

When I say Florida courts have not decided something, it is because I have looked for the case and it is not there, and no Florida court has decided a dispute under a halachic prenup. The case I return to on this form comes from Maryland.

I have come across a case where a couple married in June 2003 and, on the wedding day itself, signed a prenup promising the wife $100 a day from the day they stopped living together until the Jewish marriage ended, together with an agreement sending any dispute to the Beth Din of America. The couple separated on October 1, 2005. The husband first offered the get on January 10, 2006, and, as the beth din later found, the wife refused it. The civil divorce came in 2008, and that September, before a panel of 3 rabbis, he offered the get again and she accepted it. The wife then claimed $108,000 in accumulated daily support. The panel awarded her $10,200, the daily figure from the separation to his first offer. Both sides asked the beth din to modify the award, and on review under the beth din’s own rules a senior rabbi of the court reduced it to zero, reasoning that the clause existed to secure a timely get and that a husband who offered one promptly owed nothing. The wife asked a Maryland court to vacate that ruling. The trial court refused, and in 2011 the appellate court affirmed, because the couple had agreed to the beth din’s rules, which allowed that internal review.

In reading that opinion with a Florida couple in mind, I have a few take-home points.

The first is that the daily figure exists to secure the get. A spouse who refuses a get that has been offered should not expect the clause to pay, and the beth din, not a civil court, decides what the clause means. Practice pointer. Put property, alimony and every other money question in the civil prenup, where a Florida court applies Florida law, and leave the halachic prenup to do the one job it was written for.

The second is that signing the arbitration agreement means signing the beth din’s rules, including any review inside the beth din. The Maryland court enforced those rules because the couple had agreed to them. Practice pointer. Read the named beth din’s rules and procedures before the signing, and tell your rabbi if anything in them surprises you.

Avoid signing on the wedding day, as that couple did. Nobody challenged the timing in that case, but the Beth Din of America’s own instructions ask couples to sign as far ahead of the wedding as practical, and a Florida civil prenup signed under that kind of pressure is the agreement most often attacked.

An honest limit belongs here. The Maryland decision does not bind a Florida court, and no Florida appellate court has ruled on whether it would confirm a beth din award under this form or how it would treat the daily figure. What I can draft for is the part Florida law does decide.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case described above is a published decision of a Maryland court in other parties’ matter, not a matter this firm handled, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on October 6, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. General information about Florida law, not legal or halachic advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Halachic determinations are made by your rabbi or beth din. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.