I want to inform you all of a little-known crisis happening to women in the Orthodox Jewish world. This is unrelated to Israel. Disclaimer: I am Orthodox myself and it's times like these when I REALLY have to reconcile my conflicting values of religion and feminism. I'm not here to debate that in this post though.

For a Jewish marriage to end, a man has to give his wife a gett, a divorce document. The idea behind it was supposedly to protect women, since she is required to accept it. Basically, a man can't just leave his wife without her permission, which would have obvious consequences for her as it would be difficult to remarry. In a time when women relied on their husbands for things like money and housing, it would be a crisis for a man to just leave his wife. Nowadays, this gets twisted. If a man wants to coerce (or just plain abuse) his wife, he can hold the gett over her head. He doesn't have to give her a gett just because she wants one. If he wants money, or to "fix things," or full custody of the children, etc. he can withold the gett from his wife, and keep her chained to a dead marriage. Women lose everything trying to gain freedom from their husbands. A woman chained to a dead marriage is called an agunah.

Why don't these women just walk away and start new relationships? If a married woman commits adultery, not only is it a major sin in itself, any children born of the forbidden relationship will take on the status of a mamzer. A mamzer has many restrictions, the worst being that they can only marry other mamzers. Also, mamzer status gets passed on for multiple generations. Of course a woman would not want to put her child through that. The other option is to just leave the community entirely, but of course, that is not easy or possible always, not to mention a good chunk of women want to remain religious otherwise, as they still believe. As for the men who remain married? They are technically not allowed to take additional wives, but this is a "modern" (within the last 1000 years) rule instituted by the rabbis, as opposed to the biblical rule that applies to women and adultery. Thus, a man who has children with multiple wives will not be the father of a mamzer. There is no practical consequence for him.

There have been many suggestions on how to solve the crisis in the US. The most popular way in more modern circles is to sign a prenuptial agreement; basically, before getting married, both parties sign a legal document that if Person A wants to end the marriage, Person B must pay A a daily sum of money until person B gives/accepts a Jewish divorce. It's a way of getting the US courts involved in these disputes. We have Jewish courts, but they only have so much power, and an unfortunate number of them are corrupt. Getting American courts involved is where the real power comes in. There are also women trying to pass laws in NY classing gett refusal as abuse and illegal, but that obviously takes a lot more work. Gett refusal is fortunately illegal in Israel, and a man can go to prison for it.

Now, the most interesting part of the story. There is an Orthodox woman, Adina, on Instagram (@flatbushgirl) who has been heavily involved in the agunah movement for years now. She is an extremely controversial figure. She is not interested in the status quo, and she is not afraid to ruffle feathers. This obviously has made a lot of people angry. Her biggest focus right now is on one particular agunah, a woman named Malky. Her latest call to action for Malky: a sex strike. Basically, if enough married men have to go at least one night a week not getting their dicks wet, maybe they will start caring about Malky's plight, and pressure the rabbis enabling her husband to coerce him to give a gett. This suggestion has made a lot of people VERY ANGRY. Suddenly, EVERYONE is talking about the agunah crisis! I've seen it debated in multiple FB groups and on insta, Malky's case is really getting publicity. Unfortunately, most of that conversation centers around the ethics of denying our husbands sex. Sex is considered holy in Judaism, and the basis of a healthy marriage. I cannot overstate how important the rabbis consider it in our relationships. So, this has offended a lot of people. I've seen it compared to killing yourself or giving yourself cancer. I've seen claims that marriages will fall apart and leagues of men will cheat on their wives if this happens. I've seen it derided as the "cruelest, most hateful, sinful thing a person could do." Obviously, delaying sex for a night is leagues worse than any type of abuse a man could inflict on his wife. If only these women(!) could be as angry about their sisters in chains as they are about this suggested strike. If only the men complaining about this pending sex strike had half that anger for agunahs, we wouldn't be in this situation.

This call for a sex strike (and Adina's general efforts) have been so effective that multiple articles have been written about it, and it hasn't even started yet. See here:

• Jewish Telegraphic Agency: https://www.jta.org/2024/03/07/religion/orthodox-women-activists-pledge-to-hold-sex-strike-to-protest-religious-divorce-refusal
• The Forward: https://forward.com/news/590315/mikvah-strike-flatbush-girl-agunah-protest/
• News 12 Hudson Valley: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3Gv6blMFOg/

If you are interested in helping Malky's case, you can donate to Adina's fundraiser here: https://fundd.org/174/freemalky. You can also visit @flatbushgirl on Instagram to keep track of the case, what you can do to help, and also issues facing Jewish women at large. Thank you for reading about what my sisters are going through.