A woman who has been an aguna, or chained wife, for nearly two years finally received a get (Jewish writ of divorce) from her husband after he realized he would not be able to make a pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman for Rosh Hashanah unless he granted the divorce.
Ahead of his planned trip to Ukraine, the husband discovered a travel ban had been imposed on him, one of the sanctions levied against those who refuse to grant a get. After his request to lift the ban was denied, he relented last week and gave his wife the long-awaited divorce. She marked the new year as a free woman.
The couple had been married for about a decade when, two years ago, the woman requested a divorce. Her husband refused for various reasons, prompting her to file for divorce in the rabbinical court. Initially, the court did not mandate that the husband issue a get, ruling instead that he was obligated to divorce her as a religious duty but not legally required. The husband continued to refuse.
At this point, the woman turned to Yad La’isha, an organization under the Ohr Torah Stone network that supports women who are refused a get. Attorney and rabbinical advocate Dina Reitchik, who represented the woman through Yad La’isha, filed a request with the rabbinical court, which then imposed the obligation to grant the get and issued related sanctions, including the travel ban.
However, the husband still refused to release her. “We knew that sanctions like revoking his driver’s license or freezing his accounts wouldn’t bring about the get because this was a case of pure refusal,” explained Reitchik. At one point, it seemed nothing would work – until the husband, who was known for his devotion to visiting the graves of righteous figures, asked for the travel ban to be lifted so he could make his annual pilgrimage to Uman. “We saw this as a rare opportunity to apply pressure and refused to lift the ban,” Reitchik said.
Although the husband was initially angry, during a hearing at the rabbinical court last week he realized the ban would not be lifted and he finally agreed to grant the divorce to secure his trip to Uman.
“In the end, his love for the tzaddik (righteous figure) was stronger than whatever ‘love’ he claimed to have for his wife, which he had used to justify his refusal,” Reitchik said. “I’m happy that this woman began the new year as a free woman. We will continue to fight for the freedom of all our clients who remain trapped in marriages against their will.”
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