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July 16, 1999/3 Av 5759, Vol. 51, No.41
Rabbi grants agunot divorces, causing British stir
DOUGLAS DAVIS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
LONDON - A visit to Britain by a U.S. rabbi involved in the plight of Orthodox women whose husbands refuse to grant them religious divorces has provoked a bitter controversy within the British Orthodox community.
Agunot, sometimes referred to as "chained women," may be divorced according to civil law, but they lack a get (religious bill of divorce).
During his visit, Moshe Morgenstern raised the hackles of the Orthodox establishment when he secretly married one British agunah - a 32-year-old woman who received a civil divorce in 1992 - while raising expectations among other agunot that a religious solution would be found to free them all.
Not only do almost all Orthodox rabbis refuse to marry agunot, but most Orthodox Jews regard the children of any subsequent union by such women as mamzerim (bastards), who according to Orthodox application of Jewish law, are permitted to marry only other mamzerim. This practice does not apply, however, to the subsequent children of the former husbands who have refused to grant their wives a religious divorce.
Women who find themselves trapped in this marital twilight - at the end of one marriage and unable to embark on another - frequently complain that their former husbands demand vast sums of money for a get.
But Morgenstern told an audience of 200 in London that his New York-based Beit Din (religious court) has already annulled 280 marriages of agunot, of whom 100 have remarried in ceremonies at which he officiated. He said that if his 2-year-old Beit Din decides that a marriage is dead, "we will give a get on behalf of the husband." Such an arrangement, he insisted, is "a million percent halachically correct."
British Chief Rabbi Jona-than Sacks does not agree. After meeting with the American rabbi, he described Morgenstern's actions as "illegal" and a "breach" of religious law. Sacks said he had decided to meet with Morgenstern because he would "leave no stone unturned in seeking a solution to the problem of agunah."
"We agonize over the plight of agunot," Sacks said. "However, no court can legalize the illegal."
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