Tackling the injustice of agunot

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NAOMI LEVIN

ORTHODOX rabbis have met with Jewish women’s rights advocates to discuss the anomaly of agunot — women whose husbands will not grant them a Jewish divorce.

The meeting was held in Melbourne last week between the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) and the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia (NCJWA) — and the person who brought them together was Israeli lawyer Sharon Shenhav, an advocate for women’s justice within Jewish law.

Following the meeting, Shanhav told The AJN she was pleased that local rabbis are taking the plight of agunot seriously through the recent introduction of pre-nuptial agreements.

“Agunot are absolutely still relevant and a problem,” she said of the phenomenon, which has lasted for centuries.

She heard from the rabbis, who represented Chabad, Mizrachi and modern Orthodox congregations, that the pre-nuptial agreements — which must be strongly recommended to all couples married by an Orthodox rabbi in Victoria — have been issued more than 600 times already, with only one couple expressing disagreement with the document.

During her trip to Australia as NCJWA scholar-in residence, Shenhav met with people who are or who know an agunah, including one woman whose husband disappeared 57 years ago.

Shanhav said pre-nuptials are an important step forward, but that Australia is behind the times in bringing them in. Israel has had them for more than two decades, mainstream Orthodox American couples have been signing them for 20 years and they have been in place in Britain for at least a decade.

“It’s nothing new, but I am delighted Australian rabbis have taken to it.”

At last year’s RCV AGM, former president Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant advocated for pre-nuptial agreements to become compulsory. He was defeated though, largely by some of the older rabbis.

However Shanhav was unwilling to blame the older generation for dragging their feet on agunot.

“It [the meeting] crossed all age groups and all showed genuine concern about the problem.”

Current RCV head Rabbi Yaakov Glasman spoke compassionately of women who find themselves unable to break free of a troublesome marriage.

“It is our sincere hope that the women who are suffering as a result of this issue will be freed without further delay, and the RCV is working hard to pre-empt such cases occurring in the future,” he said.