New York woman initiates Orthodox ‘sex strike’ to receive her Jewish divorce

Around 1 a.m. Wednesday night, Brooklyn-based activist Adina Sash received a phone call she had long awaited: Malky Berkowitz, 29, a fellow Orthodox woman, had finally received a “get,” or Jewish divorce contract.

For Sash, better known on Instagram as “Flatbush Girl,” the phone call also ended a six-month sex strike she had mounted on Berkowitz’s behalf. 

Jewish law affords men the power to withhold ritual divorce from their wives with no recourse, and Berkowitz’s estranged husband had refused to issue a get for four years.

So, in protest, Sash rallied Jewish women to withhold sex from their husbands on Friday nights, known as “mitzvah night,” as well as following a period of ritual impurity during and after menstruation, known as niddah. 

The goal was to recruit men as well as women to pressure Berkowitz’s estranged husband to divorce her.

“The case needed a lot of public visibility in order to sort of shake it awake and make everyone aware,” Sash told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wednesday. “Definitely each woman, in her own way, took on the solidarity with Malky and until she was free, had made pledges to not have sexual relations Friday night, or just to completely strike.”

On Instagram, Sash was ecstatic about the news.

“MALKY GOT A GETT,” read the text in her Wednesday post, splashed over a photo of Sash and Berkowitz, who lives in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel in New York’s Orange County, grinning arm in arm. In the caption, she wrote, “Malky is FREE. Never give up!”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adina Sash (@flatbushgirl)

Sash doesn’t know how many women participated in the sex strike, but there’s no question that it gained attention and sparked debate that reached far beyond Sash’s 74,000 Instagram followers. 

After she launched the strike in March, it drew a mix of criticism and support from Orthodox influencers, commentators and rabbis, as well as coverage in mainstream media.

Sash and her supporters felt that refusing sex on Friday night was a natural way to protest for a victim of get refusal, known in Hebrew as an “aguna,” or “chained woman.” But critics — including both men and women — worried that using sex as a pressure tactic was unhealthy.

In the end, Sash says she and the other advocates working on Berkowitz’s behalf aren’t sure exactly what changed her husband’s mind. But she feels the campaign had a positive impact.

A win for justice 

“This was long overdue justice,” she said. “And justice won. And it was only through the awareness of the abuse which created accountability that allowed the husband to wake up one day and actually feel that this was something he had to do for himself.”

Sash’s Instagram post on Wednesday received hundreds of supportive comments, including references to a blessing thanking God for freeing captives. 

Others expressed well wishes and hoped for similar results for other chained women, widely considered the victims of spousal abuse.

“Mazel Tov, on this occasion, wonderful news. Let’s hope everyone else from Chava and on can get freed soon,” wrote one user, referring to another aguna.

Sash related that another get refuser she’s been pressuring, someone who had criticized her in the past, contacted her to congratulate her on helping obtain a get for Berkowitz. “He just reached out and said, like, ‘Wow, amazing job,’” she said.

Sex strikes and their history 

The strike led by Sash echoes the sex strike in Greek playwright Aristophanes’ comedy “Lysistrata,” where the women of Athens refrained from sleeping with their husbands in order to end the Peloponnesian War. 

Women-led sex strikes have also been used successfully in contemporary communities, such as during Liberia’s civil war in 2003, an effort that later won a Nobel Peace Prize. Orthodox women have reportedly embarked on similar sex strikes in smaller communities, such as one in Canada several decades ago.

Malky and Volvy Berkowitz were married in 2016 after having met in person for only 15 minutes. According to hospital records cited in New York Magazine, Volvy has schizophrenia, a history of messianic delusions, and multiple instances of hospitalizations.

Malky filed a legal complaint against him in a Rockland County court, alleging that he physically assaulted her and was sexually inappropriate with their three-year-old daughter.

“Besides Volvy giving me a kdishen [sic] ring and getting me pregnant twice, we never connected,” she wrote in a text message shared earlier this year with JTA. “Good bye Volvy I never knew you and I’ll never know you.”

As for how Sash is going to celebrate?

“I got a spray tan so I can have an amazing mitzvah night with my husband,” she said.