No to Agunahs

To pious Jews for thousands of years, divorce has simply meant compliance with God's rule as laid down in His theocratic handbook, Deuteronomy (24:1): When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it cometh to pass, if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he writeth her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house. . . . Today, as in ancient times, a good Orthodox Jew or his agent obtains a religious divorce by handing his wife or her agent a get (writ of divorcement) before a rabbi. But many another Jew gets a civil divorce or deserts his wife, without bothering to give her the get which, religiously at least, sets her free. This leaves the woman an agunah, neither wife, maid nor widow, who cannot remarry in the synagog.

Two years ago, "conservative" rabbis representing about one-third of 4,228,000 U. S. Jews moved to protect whatever agunahs were in their flocks by permitting them in certain cases to obtain divorces. At that time the agunah question was also before the Orthodox rabbis who rule the largest segment of U. S. Jewry (the inconsiderable remainder, Reform Jews, divorce as they please). Last week at its 32nd annual convention in Atlantic City the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U. S. and Canada said its final say on the matter. The Union voted overwhelmingly "not to recede one iota" from the Orthodox position on the status of the lorn agunah.

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