From this rabbi you can run, but you can't hide

[struggle4progress]

By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - When Jewish husbands skip out on their wives and refuse to grant them a divorce, a 58-year-old rabbi assembles a team of investigators to track them down anywhere in the world and untie the bonds of matrimony.

According to Orthodox Jewish ritual law, a woman abandoned by her husband is considered single and free to marry again only if he gives her a bill of divorce, known in Hebrew as a "Get".

Israel's Rabbinical Court, which oversees Jewish marriages in the country, said that each year, dozens of husbands maliciously refuse to sign the decree, leaving their wives "agunot", or "anchored" to their previous marriage ...

"Once we find them, we need to be smart and good psychologists. Our target is not to rat them out or take their money. We never actually become violent," Gordon said ...

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reutersEdge&storyID=2007-02-12T113732Z_01_NOA241824_RTRUKOC_0_ISRAEL-HUSBANDS.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

[BlameCanada12]

1. Fuck. Religion just sucks. All of it. What a load of tripe. n/t

[bryant69]

3. Yes - men should be free to abandon their wives if they choose to!

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Book Lover]

2. Is there no means by which this law can be changed?

[Meshuga]

4. Yes,

And we classify that change as non-Orthodox Judaism (Conservative, Reform, Reconstrucionalist, etc.) which consists of over 90% of religious Jews. The orthodox are still stuck somewhere in the beginning of the common era as far as marriage laws and they can't see that this law is a tool for the husbands to hurt their wifes.

[Book Lover]

5. Please forgive my ignorance, but I want to understand this

So if an Orthodox woman whose husband had left her decided that she was going to give up waiting for the get in order to marry again, she would have to consider herself not Orthodox any longer?

[Meshuga]

6. Complicated, I know :-)

But if her husband leaves her and she gets a "get" from a conservative rabbi or if she gets a divorce through civil court (and not a "get" from the orthodox) in the eye of the orthodox (and not of civil society and 90% of all jews) she will be still considered the wife of the guy who ran away unless she is able to have a Get from an orthodox institution. So, she can go out and get a divorce elsewhere and re-marry but she would be considered an adulteress in her orthodox community.

These women believe in the orthodox doctrine otherwise they would get a divorce by other means and re-married with a non-orthodox rabbi. And for the ones who do this, they are considered adulteress in the eyes of the orthodox community. So is the husband who ran away. But the husband doesn't care, obviously.

The woman can still be orthodox after getting a non-orthodox divorce and a non-orthodox second marriage. However, her community will consider her first husband as her only husband and her second husband as her lover. If she has kids in the second marriage, her children are considered bastards (mamzerim) in the eyes of her orthodox community. In the orthodox community a mamzer (a bastard) cannot get married to a Jew so you see the problems this woman wants to avoid if she wishes to be orthodox.

For the orthodox none of the weddings, divorce, conversions, etc. by non-orthodox rabbis are to be considered valid. The orthodox want to control everything and they don't even represent 9% of the Jewish population.

[Book Lover]

8. Thank you for the detailed explaination

I did some reading on the marriage and divorce laws last night; it is *very* interesting. And complex.

[piesRsquare]

7. Yes.

A Reform or Reconstructionist rabbi would have no problem officiating the wedding.

The whole notion of "get" is a bit more complex than what is being inferred in this article. There's more to it.

[Book Lover]

9. As I am beginning to learn...

Thanks for your reply from a fellow San Franciscian.