About divorce refusals
Zohar Barak and Marianna Constanti, Pressure Suit, 2023. Sewing thread with mixed media, 150 x 50 cm. Image photography: Yehudit Sitbon
"You are as sacred to me as the religion of Moses and Israel" - this is what the groom says under the canopy to his bride, and through these very words she becomes his wife. The families are excited, the flashes are flashing, the eyes are shining. However, the tears of excitement and joy obscure the deep proprietary meaning of this ceremony, where the man actually buys ownership of the woman, her body, property and sexuality.
As long as the married life is conducted in peace, that property does not affect the marital conduct, which can exist in equality and respect and love. However, when the same building is cracked forever, and the woman wants to separate from the man, she may find out in the flesh the meaning of being bought to her husband: at his will she will let go and at his will she will hold him.
A woman whose husband does not let her go is called Agona - remains like an anchor, chained to the bottom, in darkness. She will not be able to continue her life, start a new relationship, start a family. Apparently, docking is a phenomenon that is light years away from the reality of our lives in a democratic and modern country. But in fact, thousands of women in Israel today are in this unimaginable situation, where they are involuntarily imprisoned in a marriage they don't want. And it is not just about religious women who are subject to Halacha; The law in Israel, which grants exclusivity to the courts in the area of personal status (marriage and divorce), subjects all women in Israel to the halachic legal system. This law applies to every Jewish woman in Israel, religious, secular or traditional.
imprisoned today in this inconceivable reality, held against their will in an unwanted marriage. Not only religious women are subject to the halakha. Israeli law, that gives the rabbinic Beit Din exclusivity in issues of personal status (marriage and divorce) and subordinates all women in Israel to the halakhic system. This law applies to every Jewish woman in Israel – religious, secular, or traditional.
The deprivation of freedom inherent in aginut is the most serious impairment of women's rights enshrined in Israeli law. Behind words such as "Get refusal" or "aginut" is a bitter truth: a woman in Israel does not have the right to divorce without her husband's consent. And yet, despite the severe nature and scope of this situation, it fails to gain sufficient coverage in the public, political, and rabbinic agendas.
Aginut is not a predestined fate and, in fact, if the Rabbinate would invest the necessary effort and willingness, it wouldn't exist at all. Throughout history, halakhic sages found creative ways to release agunot and there is now a range of solutions to combat this phenomenon: prenup agreements, creating a "condition" in the marriage contract, annulment of the marriage (hafka'at kiddushin) or advance preparation of a Get. Unfortunately, however, the Rabbinate does not see fit to use these tools and many women consequently pay an intolerable price. Only a public demand and pressure on the Rabbinate will spur the rabbis to advance these solutions.
This is the motivating reason behind the decision of Mavoi Satum to initiate the 'Looking Ahead (Married to the Future)'exhibition. The diversity of voices that arise from the works unite in a heartbreaking cry to which no-one can remain unmoved.
"For the Torah shall go forth out of Zion" said the Prophet Isaiah (2:3) – the State of Israel, a beacon of Torah for the entire Jewish world, must strive to completely eradicate aginut.
Adv. Orit Lahav – Executive Director, Mavoi Satum
Avigail Fried, Far Above Rubies, 2023. A series of mixed technique paintings, 60 x 50 cm; 150 x 70 cm; 62 x 42 cm. Image photography: Yair Medina
Hila Karabelnikov Paz, He Who Differentiates Between Darkness and Light, 2023. Masking tape and wallpaper on canvas, 100 x 120 cm; 90 x 120 cm. Image photography: Yair Medina
Every woman has the right to choose and the right to freedom!
No woman should have to live in a prison while still alive.
The exhibition 'Looking Ahead (Married to the Future)'gives artistic expression to the trauma tic phenomenon that unfortunately persists in Jewish society, both in Israel and in the Diaspora, even in 2023.
Every woman has the choice and freedom to marry whoever her heart desires. Unfortunately, not every woman receives this fundamental freedom to end her marriage if she so desires.
According to estimates of the Rackman Center, approximately 2000 new women each year become agunot – women for whom the halakha has become a tool of punishment and imprisonment at the hands of their ex-partner. Recalcitrant men, who take revenge on these women by refusing them a Get and terrorizing them, imprison them both halakhically and emotionally, for long periods, sometimes even for years.
The issue of agunot is without doubt yet another kind of severe violence towards women who merely seek their freedom – frequently accompanied by incompetence or powerlessness of the religious and state establishment that fails to act quickly and efficiently.
As public officials– in the Knesset, the government and elsewhere – we must all strive with greater vigorto extricate these women from a situation whereby men who abuse this tool, will continue to control their lives from afar.
Aginut is not a predestined fate.
A society that desires life does not harm the human spirit, and the human spirit is, primarily, our freedom to choose.
MK Pnina Tamano-Shata – Chairwoman, Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality
Our Agunot Sisters Overseas
At the completion of a lecture that I delivered more than a decade ago somewhere in Europe, a woman approached me and, in a voice choked with tears, told me that after 30 years of marriage, her husband had left her for another woman without giving her a Get (a bill of divorce in Jewish law).
Several months later I was contacted by Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis, who described to me the terrible phenomenon of men who abandon Jewish women and leave them agunot, with the local Beit Din having no real means to exert pressure on the husband and persuade him to give his wife a Get.
Faced with this plight, several women turned to the Beit Din (rabbinic court) but not being Israeli citizens, their claims were not even heard.
The solution proposed by Rabbi Goldschmidt was both bold and precedential: to grant authority to the Israeli Beit Din over cases involving Jewish spouses who are not citizens of the State of Israel and who didn't marry in Israel. Involving the Israeli rabbinic Beit Din is a genuine means to exert pressure on men who leave their wives agunot.
I worked for four years on a process of complex legislation that will enable agunot who are not citizens of Israel to apply to the Beit Din in Israel and receive assistance. The women's tragic plight broke my heart, and their stories truly shocked me. As a legislator in the nation state of the Jewish People, I felt a powerful need to assume responsibility and to help them.
Shortly before completing the legislation, I received an order to withdraw the law, to leave the plenum, and not to participate in the vote. I refused. As a compromise, the law was passed as a Temporary Order. I paid a heavy political price for leading this legislation but have absolutely no regrets.
On the day before the first Yom Kippur after I left the Knesset, several months after the law came into effect, I received a message that nearly30 agunot had been freed by virtue of this legislation, and this number has only increased since then. Just as we have succeeded in helping agunot overseas, we must also strive to find a solution for those in Israel to ensure that not a single woman remains trapped in her marriage.
Dr. Aliza Lavie, Former MK
Chana Goldberg, Destruction, 2023. A series of mixed technique paintings,
40 x 97 cm; 36 x 49 cm; 24.5 x 34.5 cm. Image photography: Yair Medina