Volume 67, Issue 4

A New Hope for Agunot

by Eli Feldblum

Several months ago, a number of Jewish college students attended a rally.  They protested vigilantly, brandished critically worded posters, recited Psalms and echoed endless chants.  Unlike many previous rallies, which often feature pro-Israel demonstrations in front of a public square or embassy, the building assailed this time was not the United Nations, the Palestinian or French embassy, or an anti-Semitic/Israel/Zionist college campus.  It was an innocent company that happened to employ Ira Goodman.*

For eleven years, Goodman had refused to provide his wife with a get, an official Jewish document of divorce.  Without it, Goodman’s wife could not remarry – even though they had been legally divorced the entire time.  According to Rabbi Yonah Reiss, Director of the Beis Din of America, Goodman had caused his wife severe mental trauma; she had thus not dared to challenge him for ten years.

Even after being challenged, Goodman had offered numerous excuses for not giving a get and had all but admitted to the Beis Din that he had physically abused his wife.  Posters were hung up in Goodman’s community advertising his recalcitrance; his “social benefits,” such as being a member of the local synagogue and being invited to family and community celebrations, were revoked. Still Goodman refused.

Once they learned of the situation, the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA) staged three protest rallies of Yeshiva students and local rabbis at the home and workplace of Ira Goodman.  At each, the protestors spoke amicably with Goodman, attempting to educate him about the importance of this principle, and at the end of the third rally, Goodman agreed to a meeting.  After speaking with members of ORA and local rabbis and community leaders for five hours, Goodman agreed to give his wife a get.  This success was instrumental in displaying to ORA their own effectiveness.  In the proud words of one of their founders, this showed that the ORA strategy “worked and [that] it can work again.”

ORA began when a Yeshiva student grew interested in the Agunah [literally, “chained”] problem after hearing his rabbi speak about it in a number of his classes.  He searched for a group that would coerce the recalcitrant husbands but found nothing.  He then contacted Reiss, whom he knew had been involved in many such cases, to inquire about starting his own program.  “I wanted to join an organization,” the student recounted, “but ended up starting one.”

Together with some close friends and with Reiss’ guidance, this student created ORA within six months.  With the pro bono help of Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter, who submitted a proposal to the firm to help ORA as a case of “religious-based human rights violations,” ORA became a fully incorporated, nonprofit entity.

According to its founders, there is no other organization that takes ORA’s approach to dealing with the Agunah problem.  As declared on their mission statement, ORA does not focus on prenuptial agreement, but rather on “alleviating the great anguish that many women currently bear.”  ORA’s intent is only to use its protesting as a last measure – but still in a consistent manner, so that women can depend on it.  Before rallying, members contact the colleagues, friends, and relatives of the husband to enlist their help.  They do not proceed with the rally unless it is sanctioned by a respectable beis din, the husband’s local rabbis and the wife, and appropriately approved by their lawyer and the local police.

Even then, they rally with the mindset that the husband is Jew who must be properly educated, not a criminal who must be forced to hand over a get.  “I don’t want to hurt the guy – monetarily, socially or physically,” ORA’s founder maintains. “I just want to educate him to fulfill a mitzvah.”

So far, ORA has handled two cases and is on the verge of managing its third.  Recognition of the organization is slowly spreading by word-of-mouth and through their website.  The founders believe that the Agunah dilemma is “one of the biggest internal problem in orthodoxy, especially since it is so hushed-up.”  They hope to be an example to others and fully welcome the complete reproduction of their organization.

As a nonprofit organization, ORA's strength is fully dependent on the quantity and dedication of its volunteers.  So far, the turnout has been outstanding.  In one instance, 15 volunteers protested just as potently through pouring rain.  Last Wednesday night, October 29th, 300 people attended an ORA-organized symposium about the Agunah situation.  Still ORA needs more.  As Reiss remarked during that symposium, “Every individual can affect a real change in one person's life.”

For more information about how you can help, visit their website at www.getora.com.  To employ their services, either visit the website or call the ORA hotline at 212-696-7206. 

*names changed throughout the article

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