For the 18-year-old, ecstatic to start the Jewish home she was raised to build, who wonders at the erratic behavior of the man before her, and thinks, Surely, if something were wrong, someone would have said something.
For the 20-year-old, now a mother of two, wondering what happened to her “Torah scholar” who spends more time on the internet than in the beis medrash, the study hall where he is supposed to be learning Torah.
For the 22-year-old mother of three, who asks again for permission for birth control because parenting alone, due to a mentally ill husband, is taking its toll.
For the 24-year-old, who finally leaves in the middle of the night with her babies, her bruises, and the bag on her back, only to return the next week because “shalom bayis” — peace in the home — is her job and maybe if she tried harder, if she smiled more, if she had dinner on the table, he wouldn’t hit her again.
For the 26-year-old mother of four, who tells her story over and over again to anyone who will listen, but stops when a therapist from the community suggests she take antidepressants if she isn’t happy in her marriage.
For the 28-year-old, who refuses her husband’s demand that she be intimate with his friend — while he watches.
For the 30-year-old, who discovers her husband visits prostitutes because she needs treatment for an STD.
For the 32-year-old, forced to lie beneath him yet again, though Halacha forbids them to be together at that time.
For the 34-year-old, who cannot ignore her husband’s late-night excursions to their daughter’s room, but wonders who will believe her, to whom she can turn?
For the 36-year-old, who is told not to shame the family when she tells them she needs a divorce.
For the 38-year-old, who can no longer live this way and leaves, his snarled, “You’ll get a get when you’re old and wrinkled and no one will ever want you again” ringing in her ears.
For the 40-year-old, working two jobs and struggling to make ends meet, while he refuses to pay child support, yet remains a welcome guest at shabbat meals.
For the 42-year-old, whose rabbi told her that physical abuse isn’t a reason for divorce and asked why she hadn’t tried other sexual positions to make him happy.
For the 44-year-old who keeps calm while she hears the list of what he wants in exchange for her divorce (delivered by a rabbi): give up her demand for back unpaid child support; give up her right to half of value of the house; drop all charges of abuse; close the restraining order; and pay $150,000 for his shame of her seeking a divorce.
For the 46-year-old, who trembles in fear as her daughter walks down the aisle having refused to sign a halachic prenup because “Your story isn’t mine.”
For the 48-year-old, whose children are ashamed of their mother’s pursuit of a get, still after all these years.
For the 50-year-old, who never experienced real love and affection from her spouse.
For the 52-year-old, who endures community members comments that her suffering may be a tikkun — to make up for something wrong she had done in the past.
For the 54-year-old, who is chained in marriage because she refused his extortion, but he received a heter meah rabbanim, a permit signed by 100 rabbis that allows him to marry another (because her refusal got her labeled a “moredet” — a rebellious woman).
For the 56-year-old, past her child-bearing years, so lonely that she begins to date, and is shamed for seeking love.
For the 58-year-old, who turns to the religious women on Instagram to help her plead her case, baring her pain in the hope that the shame will move him — and the community — into action, since nothing else has.
For the 60-year-old being sued by her husband for libel for daring to tell her story on the internet.
For the 62-year-old, who still fields calls urging her to pay him off and buy her freedom.
For the 64-year-old whose emunas chachamim (faith in the rabbis) is as dead as her marriage.
For the 68-year-old, who watches in trepidation as her granddaughter begins to date, wondering how to protect her in a world where a Jewish woman’s dignity doesn’t matter.
For the 70-year-old, who dies an agunah, bearing his name, trapped in marriage forever.
עַל־אֵ֣לֶּה | אֲנִ֣י בֽוֹכִיָּ֗ה
For these I weep
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*The above is an amalgamation of many real women’s stories.
Every time the Rabbinate sends out its statistics about divorce and the numbers of women waiting for a get, it is a slap in the face.
This year, the Israeli Rabbinate claimed that in 2022 there were only 187 agunot (chained women). It also declared that it applied sanctions on 41 male get-refusers and 4 female get-refusers. Sanctions can include revoking a driver’s license, restrictions on a bank account, not allowing them to leave the country, and jail.
The low numbers leave the public believing that get-abuse (the denying or purposeful delaying of giving a get or extorting a spouse in exchange for a get) is a minor problem, that the courts are doing just fine, and that the issue doesn’t warrant the reform and attention activists demand.
This adds insult to injury to those for whom this issue is an urgent one.
The problem with the rabbinate statistics is what they don’t include, the questions they don’t ask, and the information they don’t provide.
The Rabbinate’s numbers don’t include people waiting for a get whose spouses have not been ordered by the court to grant one. Those cases are “off the books.”
In Israel, a spouse is only considered an agun/ah if the judges have ordered the other spouse to grant a get. (Please note, there are also men who are waiting for a get. While far fewer and with less dire halachic consequences, the men whose wives refuse to accept a get are as wronged as the women whose husbands refuse to grant them.) This order does not happen easily for a woman, as a woman must prove that she has a “reason” to want a divorce, and the judges must agree that she is deserving of it. Many women await this ruling, and as long as they are waiting — often years — they are not counted in the courts statistics.
The numbers also don’t include those whose cases have been closed because they could no longer afford to keep them open, even though they were not resolved. This includes the cases that have been dragged out for years, with expenses including: hearings, lawyer costs, unpaid days off from work, and emotional turmoil. For example, one woman was taken to court by her husband for 14 years, as she raised their five young children alone. At that point, she simply couldn’t handle the physical and emotional costs and closed the case, essentially accepting that she would forever be agunah — and not counted by the Rabbinate as one.
The Rabbinate numbers don’t include women who have given up possessions, money, visitation, child support, and more in order to not be chained. Fear of get-refusal makes one vulnerable to extortion, and those who succumb to it are not included in the statistics.
Outside of Israel, information is even harder to obtain, there is practically no data on agunot or how long cases take in the beit din because there is no overseeing body, no method of recordkeeping, and, even within individual courts, data is neither gathered nor publicized. Calls to various batei din have yielded no real information. When asked about how many cases and how long they remain so, the responses were: “We’d have to check” and “I’m not sure.”
The real number of women waiting for a get or pawning their worldly possessions to be able to pay for one is in the thousands — not only in Israel but all around the Jewish world.
Almost everywhere there is a Jewish community, there are people working to help agunot. The phenomenon is as widespread as it is denied. Those who advocate for “letting the system work” must know that the system is absolutely broken.
It is critical to note that the modern day agunah is not a woman in the classic halachic literature whose husband is lost at sea or cannot be found after an earthquake or a war. She is a woman whose husband is present, but who refuses to grant her freedom.
Since a large part of finding solutions is identifying the problem, Chochmat Nashim, together with three other organizations at the forefront of agunah advocacy, sent out a detailed survey on divorce. Responses poured in from around the world.
We learned that:
44% of respondents (over 92% female) were pressured to exchange something for a get
39.5% suffered get-refusal
21% waited 3 or more years for a get
We also learned of the many things that go wrong in beit din and that, when the system is unresponsive, it fundamentally adds to the abuse of get-refusal, as does a lack of understanding of abuse to begin with, sending women back into dead marriages and telling them to try again. In fact, halacha is pretty clear about what the court is meant to be doing. In a situation where both sides want a divorce, there is no problem. But if a spouse refuses, a beit din should summon that party, evaluate the case, and apply whatever pressure it can to ensure that the husband gives the get and the wife accepts it. Too often the beit din makes no effort to reach out to the husband (in the Diaspora), for example, or will tell the wife that she should accept his extortion demands in exchange for the get.
The batei din will tell you that they rule strictly to prevent the problem of illegitimate children. But aren’t they ignoring the issue of all of the children not being born while women waste their fertile years languishing in limbo, unable to move on to a new relationship, while awaiting a get? The appropriate care taken to safeguard against future illegitimate children smacks of control and abuse for its own sake.
Please understand: All of those people and organizations working on behalf of agunot see the heavy toll get-refusal takes on the waiting spouse, the (former) couple’s children, and the integrity of the Jewish community. Custody, finances can all be worked out after a get is given and received, but denying a spouse’s freedom is abuse. Allowing one party to use Jewish law to chain another makes a mockery of Jewish marriage and Judaism itself.
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To learn more about how the beit din should operate or if you have experienced beit din for divorce, please add your voice at ratemybeitdin.com
It was a brand new Chochmat Nashim project when Shoshanna and Anne first told you about it back in August, and now that it’s well underway, it’s ripe for an update. How many courts are reviewed on the site? Why did one dayan complain about his rating? How is it helping people who think they might want a divorce? And what about that new training program to help the judges get the perfect 5-star reviews they want?
Chained for years to a man she considered abusive, her final wish was to dissolve the marital bond. She died trying.
Leah’s nightmare was to die an agunah, denied a Jewish bill of divorce, chained to the man who she said abused her for decades.
Leah was born to a Hasidic family in Stamford Hill, London. Of her upbringing, she said, “From when I was tiny, the only thing that was ever ingrained in me was that my goal in life was to get married and have children. So much so that when I wanted to study for an exam or do something that wasn’t compulsory, I was told, ‘You don’t need this to check Pampers.’”
Leah married, had six children, and lived for years with what she described as emotional manipulation and psychological abuse. “He never told me no, she said. But he would say things like, ‘The dress you made, it’s not even nice, I don’t know why you’re wearing it. Why are you going out with those weird ladies they’re not really your friends. Why do you listen to that horrid music?’ Slowly, slowly, he chipped away at my confidence. So you stop listening to the music, you stop buying the clothes, you stop going out…But if you ask him he’ll tell you, ‘I never told her she couldn’t…’”
Leah reached out for help. Her rebbe told her to give it another try. A rebbetzin she asked for help said she should “be glad he didn’t hit you.”
She asked a beit din (rabbinic court) to intervene and get her husband to change his behavior. The court sent Leah herself for a psychiatric evaluation, in which she was assessed as being anxious due to her circumstances, but entirely mentally competent.
The court arranged a trial separation, but Leah said the psychiatrist who was part of the arrangement put intense pressure on her to take her husband back after just six weeks of the 12-week trial. The judges suggested she take antidepressants.
Leah spoke often about the condescension she felt from the dayanim (judges), as though they were patting her on the head, suggesting that if only she would be better, and do better, everything would be fine.
Things at home did not get better. Though her friends helped where they could, she felt unsupported by the community. The last straw for Leah involved a ruined bat mitzvah party she had thrown for her daughter. She left, taking her two youngest children with her, and in 2013 filed for divorce in her local beit din, Kedassiah, an organization she was raised to trust.
Over the years, as Leah waited, her health deteriorated. She was diagnosed with a chronic lung condition that was exacerbated, according to her doctors, by the stress of her situation.
Her husband was a no-show to all five of the hearings of their case in beit din. Leah said that during that period, he sent her threatening text messages and made harassing calls from different numbers.
When she asked the dayanim for help, she described being shrugged off. “What do you want us to do, bring him here in chains?”
In her 40s when she started the process of seeking a get, Leah was questioned as to why she even needed a get given their view that a woman like her was unlikely to remarry.
Over the past few years, Leah’s health declined. She was put on oxygen. She was in and out of the hospital with secondary issues. She had limited mobility. Throughout, she still fought for her freedom. She did not want to die chained to this man.
The author at a protest for Leah in Stamford Hill with GetOutUK an organization representing agunot in Beit Din (Laura Ben David)
In 2020, Leah enlisted the help of GETToutUK, an organization that represents people seeking Jewish divorce. Finally, she had allies, people who believed her and respected her right to be free.
At that stage, in the face of the husband’s refusal to cooperate, the beit din could have taken action by issuing a seruv contempt of court order. Seruv would pave the way to have the husband declared a sarban get, a get refuser, and also allow for community sanctions to be placed on him, including shunning from shul, not being counted for a minyan and more. But the beit din refused to issue the seruv, claiming to be concerned it could potentially impact the husband’s mental health (there were no indications on record to suggest it might).
Issuing a seruv would have paved the way for granting Leah the halachic status of being a mesurevet get or agunah. In cases such as Leah’s, until the court issues a seruv and declares a woman officially an agunah, they don’t count her as one, no matter how desperately she wants a divorce or how long she is refused one. Because Kedassiah never issued a seruv, they denied Leah the status of being an agunah.
In one meeting, Leah begged a dayan to help her by issuing a seruv. Leah recalled the dayan telling her to “forget about” her abuser for her health and safety. When she explained to him that she couldn’t, that being married to him was a millstone around her neck, she said the dayan responded: “What millstone around your neck? There’s no millstone around your neck. Explain to me what’s around your neck.”
He failed to understand the torture of being married to a man who Leah experienced as having emotionally manipulated her – and continuing to do so.
Kedassiah did give tacit permission for the “get ladies,” as they called GETTtoutUK, to hold a demonstration. “Keep up the pressure,” they wrote to the organizers. In March 2022, I joined them, and we stood at the side of the road in Stamford Hill and called on Leah’s husband to release her.
Leah’s health deteriorated. She knew she was dying.
She did not want to die married to her abuser, still bearing his name. Leah told the dayanim that she did not want him at her funeral or sitting shiva for her. They assured her that they would honor that request.
Thursday night, Leah died, an agunah, chained to the marriage.
The man Leah viewed as her abuser was at her funeral. He is sitting shiva for her. The dayanim of Kedassiah stayed away.
They would surely say, “our hands didn’t shed this blood,” but those who see women as property, to control and not as people deserving of dignity, those in positions of leadership who fail to lead, those who tie their own hands instead of reaching them out for justice, the community who stood by and watched the protests, who didn’t step up, those who said it is immodest for a woman to publicly demand her freedom — they have all shed this blood.
When we interviewed Leah in March, she told us her story and she asked the community for three things, which I would like to share with you:
1 – LISTEN when a woman comes to you. No woman wakes up one morning and decides, “I think I’ll get divorced today…” I tried. I ran away. Nobody listened.
2 – HELP OUT. There is no help out there for separated or divorced women or their children. My son had no one to learn with him.
3 – Every beit din needs a woman professional. They need to understand that a woman isn’t coming there because they’re “emotional” or “moody.” She’s there to get help.
Many people who have heard this story asked how they can help. Partially as a result of Leah’s experiences, and in collaboration with three other organization Chochmat Nashim, the organization I cofounded, created Rate My Beit Din. It allows people who have experienced beit din for divorce to share their experiences and literally rate their beit din. It also allows people to choose what beit din to file in based on the ratings that exist. Leah never had this choice. If she had, odds are she never would have gone to Kedassiah, and perhaps her story would have been different. We know that knowledge is power, power to choose a better service, and power to expose injustices.
Yes, the system has its own difficulties, but all batei din are not created equal. Some are empathetic and deal urgently with cases of abuse. Some dayanim understand that every day of experiencing this deep pain is another day of freedom denied.
What can you do?
Send this survey to everyone who has experienced divorce in a beit din and tell them that the results will be much more useful if we gather as many reviews as we can.
Support Rate My Beit Din, as we seek to improve transparency, accountability, and standardized best policies and practices.
Advocate for batei din to have women in the courts.
Ask in your community if there are single parents and children who need an adult or big sibling to learn with and reach out to them.
Together, we can raise the standards in batei din, report those who do not understand how to deal with cases of abuse, and support those who see women as people, deserving of dignity and freedom.
We are committed to honoring Leah’s fight and her memory by improving the beit din experience and ensuring that dayanim understand and work to diminish the pain of waiting for one’s freedom. Together, we can ensure no more women die in chains.
Leah Rus Bas Perele Hena z”l
May her memory be a revolution!
Protests, prenups, and, still, so many women are chained in marriage. Now, a new Chochmat Nashim project encourages transparency and best practices in the religious courts. Shoshanna and Anne explain the project and why it is both innovative and a safeguard for the Jewish community. Our next step to end get-abuse!
On a dreary March morning in Stamford Hill, 10 of us stood in Clapton Common holding signs in English and Yiddish.
A woman walked past us and slowed her stride, careful not to stop, as though aware that others were watching. “Thank you,” she said, her face a mask of controlled but pained emotion. “Thank you for doing this. It’s so important… I waited for so long and no one showed up for me.”
And then she was gone. Just another Chasidic woman with a cropped modest wig covered with a secondary head covering, blending into the streets of Stamford Hill.
We looked at one another, struck silent. The exchange, just seconds long, had put tears in our eyes. Though we were there for one woman, Leah Hochauser, who had been waiting eight years for her get, it was clear that our actions could affect so many more.
The protest was, as far as we know, the first of its kind in Stamford Hill. We called for Chaim Yeshaye Hochauser to free his wife and grant her a get.
Though he has been called at least five times to Keddasia Beis Din, he has not shown up. His ailing wife, Leah, simply wants to be free of her dead marriage. Aside from the emotional turmoil caused by being denied a get, Leah also suffers with a serious medical condition. Hochauser doesn’t seem to care.
Numerous people stopped to talk to us, men and women. Some stared, others recorded us and still others yelled, asking why we were doing this in public.
A number of people sympathised, but didn’t understand what they could possibly do to help. A few said they would speak to him.
In reality, however, get refusal is everyone’s problem and everyone has a role in resolving it. It is a man-made problem which calls for man-made solutions.
According to Ramie Smith of GettOutUK, which represents people seeking Jewish divorce (Leah is their current client, along with 10 other Jewish women): “Men who withhold a get have no consequences. The woman suffers, raising her children, often in poverty, alone and feeling helpless. By showing a man that his neighbours will know that he is abusing his wife, that he is ignoring the Beis Din order to appear, we can have an impact. We hope that Stamford Hill will come together as a community and convince Chaim Yeshaye to end his abusive behaviour, freeing Leah to live her life.”
In the past year-and-a-half, GettOutUK has helped 13 women gain their freedom. Their stories are extremely difficult to hear.
But hearing them is imperative if we are going to heal the nightmare that Jewish divorce has become. And we as a community can end it. During my visit to London earlier this month, we sat with nine former and current agunot.
The women ranged in age from 25 to 65, with one woman having been alive for as long as another had waited for her freedom. They also ranged in religious observance, from strictly-Orthodox Chassidic to non-observant.
While every story is unique, themes and patterns emerged during this conversation which we, the community, need to understand and address.
Every woman who has a Jewish wedding is a potential agunah, and men can also be trapped.
Together we can end this nightmare if we make certain behaviours and practices standard. With that in mind, we created the 10 Commandments of get abuse to help the community end get refusal:
1) Sign a Halachic pre- or post-nuptial agreement. While a bit more complicated in the UK, this is becoming standard around the world as a community vaccine for get refusal;
2) Hold your leaders accountable. Ask what they are doing to safeguard the integrity of Jewish marriage;
3) Insist on transparency in the Jewish divorce process, asking how long a divorce takes and how much money it costs;
4) Encourage synagogues to define a policy against get abuse which is public and enforced. This includes barring refusers from ritual participation and shul membership;
5) Urge religious leaders to speak publicly about get abuse from the pulpit;
6) Do not allow get abusers to feel safe and comfortable in your community. Do not invite them to shabbat meals, or communal events;
7) Do not make excuses. Abuse is abuse;
8) Do not allow extortion for the sake of a get. No one should buy their freedom;
9) “Do not stand idly by” (Leviticus 19:17). It is our job to get involved;
10) Do not allow abuse in the name of Torah.
Adopting these measures is a first step. You never know who you can save by speaking out.
