Frequently Asked Questions

Rabbinic marriage enacted by kinyan and kiddushin is the cause of iggun. Rabbinic marriage is a unilateral act, performed by the groom upon the bride, whose passive acquiescence is the only behavior she manifests in the marriage act, under the marriage canopy (huppa), which represents the husband’s home that the bride enters. Since rabbinic marriage is the unilateral act of the husband upon the wife, rabbinic divorce—a get-- equally, is a unilateral act performed by the husband to the wife, at his discretion and free will, privileges halakha treats as sacrosanct. Rabbinic law mandates that a get is valid only if the husband gives it of his free will.  This means that men refusing to give a get is a perfectly acceptable act under halakha; the husband’s will has utter predominance over any desire of the wife, who can ask for a get under halakha, but can neither force receiving one from her baal (lit., master, owner; term for husband), nor divorce him, herself. This means that ​ men who refuse to give a get, including with typical extortion for it;  men who are not mentally competent (e.g., a man in a coma) to initiate and participate in the legal process of giving a get; and -- that men who have gone missing, either willfully, in desertion, or because of accident, mishap, or war— --men who disappear, for whatever reason, including to avoid giving a get or pay child support-- are all empowered to hold wives in marital captivity.  Iggun—Jewish women’s marital captivity—results—necessarily and inevitably—from the unilateral nature of rabbinic marriage as a patriarchal act over the wife. Bad husbands and bad rabbis, however these abound, are necessary by-products of the system, not the source, the origin, of iggun.  Rabbinic marriage, enacted through kinyan and kiddushin, is the source of iggun.

Disappearance of the husband in any circumstance, including intentional abandonment and desertion; war; accident; natural disaster; ​​ Refusal of the husband to give the wife a get, including extortive demands to give the get; ​​ Mental incompetence of the husband to give of get with understanding and free will.

No. There is no time limit to a wife’s marital captivity. The presumed death of a husband, e.g., in war, terror incident, or an accident with no survivors, does not free a wife to remarry, no matter how much time, years, decades, elapse.

Yes.  However, it remains the husband’s sacrosanct right to give or withhold a get, and rabbinic courts defend that right.  Rabbinic typically use very restricted justifications for a woman’s request even being deemed acceptable for discussion.  A husband’s physical and emotional violence against the wife; his sexual abuse of her, their children, or others; or other criminal acts, including financial abuse, or his prosecution and even conviction for criminal acts-- are not automatically qualifying grounds for divorce in rabbinic courts. Rabbinic courts routinely apply halakhic rulings from centuries ago that deem it “reasonable” for a wife to “compensate” her husband for giving her a get, as in any other transaction where one party wants something the other possesses.

YES. Since the husband possesses the exclusive right to terminate the marriage under halakha, in asking for a get, the wife is asking for a "benefit" that is the husband's to confer or withhold, and he rightfully can demand payment for it, as would be the case in any transaction where one party wishes something of value that the other possesses. This understanding was codified by the rulings of the halakhic decisors (poskim), R' Joseph Colon (the Maharik, 15th century Italy), and R' Samuel de Medina (the Maharashdam, 16th century, Salonika), stating that rabbinic courts should refuse to compel a husband to divorce his wife-- even if she is able to establish grounds that they might accept for doing so-- if the husband agrees in principle to the divorce but insists, in exchange for a get, that his wife meet what the rabbinic judges deem to be his 'easily fulfilled' demands"; in Colon's terms, her husband's "reasonable" demands in exchange for a get. These rulings, referred to as the Maharashdam-Maharik rule, are enacted in rabbinic courts in Israel and the Diaspora. In the words of Orthodox rabbinic authority, Rabbi J. David Bleich, "Halakhic marriage is an exclusive conjugal servitude of the bride to the groom... "Understanding that the essence of the marriage lies in the conveyance of a 'property' interest by the bride to the groom serves to explain why it is that only the husband can dissolve the marriage. As the beneficiary of the [wife's] servitude, divestiture [divorce] requires the husband's voluntary surrender of the right he has acquired" via kinyan and kiddushin." To be clear: the "property interest" that Rabbi Bleich references, which is the husband's possession during the marriage, is his wife's body and her marital freedom.

No. The phrase, “agunot and mesoravot get” suggests that there is a status difference, a legal difference, between agunot and women who have been denied a get and/or are being extorted for a get—mesoravot get. Women who have been denied a get are agunot.  “Mesoravot” just indicates that their type of iggun is because a husband who is capable of giving a get refuses to do so. They are one class of agunot—all of whom share the same legal status under rabbinic law: they are unable to exit their marriage; are held in marriage against their will, coercively. Get refusal and extortion is one circumstance of iggun. The circumstances of iggun do not change the status of the women involved.

This pseudo-distinction wrongly implies that, unlike women in iggun for other reasons, women denied a get and/or extorted for it can buy their freedom by paying the extortion—that have a choice to stay chained in marriage or exit it.  This is an insidious implication that colludes with get extortion. Currently, get withholding and extortion is the most common way that women are made agunot. In the past, the main circumstance of women’s iggun was the husband’s disappearance, through desertion or mishap. There never was a term distinction in the past for the circumstance in which a woman became entrapped in marriage, unable to be free of it. And there should not be one now. Any married woman who seeks to end her marriage and is held in that marriage against her will, coercively, is an agunah, whatever circumstance occasions that captivity.   If get refusal must be referenced in the case of an agunah, the term should be, “agunah mesorevet get.”

No. All prenuptial agreements, prenups, are contracts and contracts are violated all the time. Enforcement requires litigation—the expense of which—for lawyers, for court hearing costs—are often used to pressure the wife into bad get agreements—no different than in primary get withholding and extortion. Halakhic agreements of any kind likely will not be even handled in civil courts, much less, enforced. But in any case, rabbinic courts outside of Israel have no enforcement mechanisms. And in Israel, rabbinic courts may declare a prenup invalid; many such courts are hostile to prenups of any kind as infringing the husband’s sacrosanct privilege over the wife in divorce—his right to withhold a get.

Yes, absolutely!  All prenups are not created equal! Some are worse than none. The best halakhic prenup is that of the Center for Women’s Justice. See that section on this site.

Rabbinic courts do not release professionally compiled statistics of the divorce cases they handle, nor do they allow any researcher to see, evaluate, or do statistical analysis of their records.  That is true for rabbinic courts in Israel and throughout the Diaspora. Rabbinic courts adhere to no professional standards even in how they assign the term, “agunah,” to women who come seeking release from marriage, often withholding this designation to women who are denied a get, and employ many other tactics—including not providing access to their records—to minimize or deny the scope of iggun.  As a result of these deliberate policies, there are estimates of the number of agunot, based on reporting from agunah advocacy organizations on their case records and journalists’ research. See the “Statistics” section on this site for more detail.

As far back as Jewish written records. Shulamit Magnus’ book, Jewish Marital Captivity: The Past, Present, and End of a Historic Abuse, traces the history of iggun – and Jewish women’s resistance to it-- back into early Jewish medieval times and throughout the Jewish world, from the 7th century CE to the present.

Tactics like halakhic prenups manage iggun. Since no prenup is a guarantee that the wife who signed it will be free of the marriage if she wishes this, use of such prenups assumes that iggun will continue.  Claiming that prenups prevent, much less end, iggun, is deceptive. As Shulamit Magnus puts it in her book, Jewish Marital Captivity: The Past, Present, and End of a Historic Abuse, using kinyan and kiddushin to enact marriage and having even the best prenup is like taking poison and having a weak antidote on hand and hoping it works. Shaming of get withholding husbands may work in  individual cases—though there are no statistics about how  many women are freed through this tactic—nor certainly,  any statistics about the percentage of the total number of  agunot freed in this way: no way to assess the effectiveness  of this tactic. Advocates of this method who operate under the aegis of  (with the permission of) rabbinic courts use shaming of get  refusers only in very selective cases after they have received  rabbinic permission, after long and costly proceedings.  Shaming of bad husbands (or bad rabbis) is no systemic solution to iggun.  Ending iggun requires measures to prevent iggun through ceasing use of kinyan and kiddush and using alternative Jewish methods to enact marriage;  forthright measures to free all current agunot, with no payoffs,  and making the exit of such women from chained marriages into new lives a realistic, viable path in families and communities through organized support.

Yes, absolutely! Iggun will ended, first, through prevention, by ceasing use of kinyan and kiddushin to enact marriage  and by using good methods from other aspects of rabbinic practice to enact committed marital relationship, such as the Rachel Adler’s Brit Ahuvim (Loving Covenant); Tzemah Yoreh’s Shvu’at Zuggiyut (Oath of Partnership). It will be ended through community-funded legal, residential, job, financial, psychological, and religious counselling and support to enable viable options for agunot to exit their marriages. This includes referral to rabbinic courts committed to ending all coercive marriages and freeing all agunot, without payoffs. In Israel: It is imperative that, however and wherever couples marry, they do not register the marriage with the Ministry of Interior (misrad hap’nim)--  because if they do, in case of desired divorce, they will be in a Chief Rabbinate (or independent, haredi) Court for it.  Rather, couples should use the services of lawyers to establish civil marriage status (yedu’im be’tsibbur), for all legal matters (finances, insurance, status of children), and to write a comprehensive prenup, including provision for dissolution of the marriage. The organization,  israelhofsheet.org.il http://www.israelhofsheet.org.il › דת_ומדינה › ישראל_חופשית,  offers webinars and consultation services about all the specifics.

There are a variety of halakhic methods to free agunot.  To cite a few: hafkaat kiddushin: retroactive annulment of the marriage; get zikkui: a get given by a bet din to free the get- refusing husband of the offense of refusing to give a get, thus conferring a benefit to him, which can be done without his consent or even his knowledge. Few Orthodox rabbinic courts apply these methods widely or at all. Several which have done so have been subjected to organized defamation, delegitimization, and intimidation campaigns by opponents. Some courts use these methods but refuse to make that public, thereby foreclosing help to agunot as a whole and refusing to be a vehicle in ending iggunby normalizing the freeing of agunot as policy:  if men knew that wives would be freed by rabbinic courts if they were being coerced to stay in the marriage or extorted to exit it, iggun would cease. Shulamit Magnus’ book, Jewish Marital Captivity: The Past Present, and End of a Historic Abuse, documents all this in detail and demonstrates the ego and organizational politics behind actions to shut down courts that free agunot and the financial benefits to batei din of keeping iggun going, not ending it. The book documents the history of expansive halakhic policy in the distant past to freeing agunot—and women’s role in bringing that policy to fruition.  It documents a rabbinic backlash against women and women’s rights to divorce without penalty, and how the regressive rulings at the core of that backlash continue to be enforced in rabbinic courts throughout the Jewish world today. Project Miriam will list information only about courts that have a declared policy and commitment to freeing all agunot, without payoffs, using established halakhic methods.

It is the policy of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement to use all halakhic methods to free agunot, with a commitment to that outcome in all cases. The following is the communication by the outgoing Av Beit Din of the Joint Beit Din of the Conservative movement, Rabbi Lionel Moses, describing its process: “The website of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA) lists all the certified Mesadderei Gittin in the Conservative Movement. If the person making the inquiry does not know rabbis in the Conservative Movement, they can contact the office of the Rabbinical Assembly, which will help them find a certified Mesadder/et Gittin. “Once a person selects a certified RA Mesadder/et Gittin, he or she will be given the contact information for the Mesadder/et Gittin. The two parties can then talk on the phone, meet on Zoom or in person. The Mesadder/et Gittin will then start trying to find the spouse, speaking with him or corresponding with him and encouraging him to authorize the Mesadder Gittin to write the Get.  “Should the encounters with the spouse fail to gain the cooperation of the spouse, the case is turned over to the Joint Beit Din of the Conservative Movement. The Mesadder/et Gittin then is instructed by the Av Beit Din to create a detailed dossier of all  correspondence and all forms of communication, both written and oral, which the Mesadder Gittin has had with the spouse, thereby providing evidence of spousal recalcitrance, or worse.  “Each member of the Joint Beit Din is sent a copy of the dossier, and if the case is clear cut, a virtual vote is held to approve Hafqa'at Kiddushin. The Mesadder/et Gittin is then authorized to write a Shtar Hafqa'at Kiddushin and to send it to the woman, indicating that the original Kiddushin were null and void ab initio and the woman is free to remarry whomever she chooses to marry. “That is a brief outline of the process that, for the most part, leads to the delivery of a Get, but where that is impossible to achieve, the woman is free to remarry under the aegis of Hafqa'at Kiddushin. “Obviously, each case is sui generis and requires the expertise and pastoral skills of the certified Mesadderei Gittin.” The Masorti beit din in Israel follows the same policy:  “The RA follows the same policy in Israel as outlined by Rabbi Moses. We operate under the auspices of the Joint Beit Din, of which Rabbi Moses serves as Av Beit Din.  “I have served as the Rabbinical Assembly’s Mesadder Gittin in Israel for the past two decades. “Rabbi Shlomo Zacharow.” Project Miriam welcomes and will publicize information about any rabbinic court that has a declared or empirically evidenced policy of freeing agunot using established halakhic methods, with no payoffs.

Absolutely not. The argument that all aspects of traditional observance are inextricably tied and that rejecting iggun means that all one’s observance or ties to tradition will or must disintegrate is a scare tactic to keep agunot abused.  The constructed argument that about mamzerut is an intrinsic part of this same strategy: a tactic of intimidation and abuse to keep chained women chained through vile threats to them and their children. Shulamit Magnus’ book, Jewish Marital Captivity, provides numerous examples from pre-modern times of agunot being freed in ways that contradicted Talmudic and other rabbinic rulings, in response to pressure and other considerations-- like high status—wealth, yichus-- of the petitioners. Keeping women in marital captivity is no mitsva. It is an abuse of power and an idolization of misogynistic male privilege and coercive male power over women. Women who reject iggun need to know that they have free will to choose to continue traditions and patterns of life that they love and wish to maintain, and they should have support from families and communities to make that free will and those choices viable. This is what we all should be doing to end iggun: There should be community-funded religious and psychological support services to assist agunot seeking an exit from their marriages, or who have broken from unwanted or coercive marriages, in charting new lives, led as the women choose.

Project Miriamis not "anti-halakhic." But it is not "halakhic," either.  It seeks to put full, accurate, honest information in the hands of Jewish women, who, across the religious spectrum, from ultra-Orthodox to avowedly secular, do not have that information and fall victim because of that ignorance, or because of socialization and intimidation, or because "it's traditional,"  and they have no idea what the legal implications of the traditional expressions that enact rabbinic marriage are, and think this—iggun-- only happens to someone else.  Project Miriam makes no appeal to any rabbi or rabbinic establishment to give this project permission or to take action; that approach is utterly futile, as over a century of pleas, agunah advocacy efforts, and political realities amply document.  Project Miriam is directed to Jewish women, period, across and beyond the religious spectrum and across geographic boundaries, to put critical information, truth and deceptions, in their hands, in order to facilitate grass-roots awareness and change, which is the only way this abuse will end: from the "bottom" "up," as Shulamit Magnus’ book, Jewish Marital Captivity: The Past, Present, and End of a Historic Abuse, documents was the case in periods of fluidity and better rights for women, way in the Jewish past-- when things were much better for women-- not because rabbis were benevolent then as they are not now--  but because of the informed, assertive, aggressive, and often transgressive actions of women in pre-modernity, in entirely traditional Jewish communities, who made such behavior a norm and extracted protections for women as a norm in Jewish life.

As decades of modern Jewish life demonstrate, people move, along both religious and geographic lines. So do their children and grandchildren. Any Jewish woman can become an agunah if the words of the rabbinic marriage formulae are pronounced at her wedding—whether the wedding was done under Orthodox, Conservative/ Masorti, Reform, or Reconstructionist, auspices, or by any other officiant, in no denominational context, in any location, in the Diaspora or Israel. Jews overwhelmingly cite “tikkun olam”—“repairing the world,” as a core aspect of their Jewish identities.  It is unseemly to claim immunity from iggun as a Jewish problem because one thinks oneself immune to it, personally  or because one’s denominational affiliation—or lack of affiliation-- leads to the erroneous conclusion that iggun is “someone else’s problem.” Such triumphalism and indifference have no place in Jewish life. Jews overwhelmingly support freedom of religious conscience and observance as a sacrosanct right. Agunot seeking relief from coercive marriage, whatever their religious observance or beliefs, are as entitled to freedom of religious conscience and observance as anyone and everyone else.  To state a demand that such agunot “just” leave their religious beliefs and practice as the price of obtaining freedom from coercive marriage is get extortion. It is to say: Want freedom? Pay for it. Jewish women’s marital captivity is a JEWISH problem, with JEWISH solutions to END this abuse within our gates. Jews from across the religious spectrum, as well as secular Jews;  Jews in the Diaspora and in Israel pulling together, on the basis of evidence of what doesn’t work and what does can end this abuse-- end this wrong-- And do right. ​ It is, indeed, as was said at the start of Jewish life so long ago: not confounding to you, nor beyond your reach. It is not in the heavens… nor beyond the sea… it is very close to you… to fulfill.