I’ve been following Heshy Fried
at his blog, Frum Satire, for a couple of years at this point.
It was actually the first blog I followed on a regular basis. I like Heshy
because he really sees things as they are and calls it like it is. He posted this article a little while ago,
equating men who deny their wives a get (divorce papers) and thereby
make them into agunot (chained wives) to rabbis who won’t give converts
their official conversion papers.
At first, I was highly offended by
this, and all prepared to leave a scathing comment on the post. As I began
writing my response, though, I couldn’t think of any argument to counter
Heshy’s. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that agunah
isn’t much different than unofficial converts.
In Judaism, how divorce works is
that the husband has to give his wife a get. While this seems sexist and
horrendous today, the law’s original intent was to protect women from quickie
divorces that were popular in the ancient Middle East.
(When I say quickie, I mean quickie. In one culture, all a man had to do was
bring his wife outside, say “I divorce you” or something to that effect three
times, and they would be divorced.) A get gives women a certain amount
of money (specified in the marriage papers), as well as other rights. Today’s
men have twisted this pro-woman measure, extorting their wives for thousands of
dollars and rights like children’s custody, in order to give a get.
Without a get, women are unable to remarry and go on with their lives.
As a result, agunah has become a big issue among today’s Jews.
With Orthodox conversion, a
person has to take classes about Judaism for several years. Would-be converts
often have to travel or move to Israel
in this process. Once done, they have to find a rabbi willing to convert them.
(For men, this means circumcision and a dip in the mikvah (ritual bath).
Women obviously only need to do the mikvah part.) Finding the rabbi is
often extremely difficult; converts like Yisrael Campbell (star of Circumcise
Me and husband of prominent Jewish feminist Avital Campbell Hochstein), who
have moved to Israel
in order to convert Orthodox, have struggled at this step. While Mr. Campbell
found his rabbi and got his official conversion papers afterwards, many people
are denied the papers. Without them, even if a person has gone in the mikvah
and is a Jew according to halakha (Jewish law), he or she can’t function
as a full Jew, not being able to marry Jewish or have a Jewish child.
So at the end of the day, are agunot
and unofficial converts that different? Neither can function as a full Jew
within society, as neither can get married nor perpetuate the Jewish nation
further. Unfortunately, both are issues that get too little lip service, let
alone action, from people in authority positions who could actually change
them. This lack of accomplishment needs to be altered. Fortunately, there are
some amazing organizations and individuals that are working for that goal.
Agunah Advocates:
Conversion Advocates:
http://yadlaisha.org.il/Default-eng.aspx
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