Israel's 'chained wives' are hidden victims of war - opinion

Israel has suffered, worried, and cried so much since October 7. We are all concerned for the young men and women being sent to the war front, for the families evacuated from the border area, and for the hostages, even when we don’t know them personally.

Amid this public tragedy and the continuing national security challenges, the hardships and suffering of another, often invisible, group has also intensified: the agunot, women bound in marriage for lack of a get – required for legal divorce in Israel – unable to remarry, move on, and truly heal. These women are generally the victims of failed and abusive marriages whose husbands refuse to give them the get. (Tragically, they may also be war widows in cases where the husband is deemed missing but cannot be proven dead.)

Agunot are experiencing a crisis within the greater crisis. As we care for these women, we also prioritize our mission of preventing more women from falling into such tragic situations.

We support these heroic women with legal and social services in their fight for freedom, but every blow shakes them to the core. Their resources are limited, their support is lacking, and they bear trauma upon trauma. The disruption of routine, as school and events are canceled due to war, weighs especially heavily upon them.

These women have no reserves for a rainy day. Many of them are hourly workers and yet their workplaces have closed, their children are home, and they can’t leave them alone. There’s no paycheck – how will they pay for bread and milk? They are in danger of total collapse.

For many agunot, October 7 has triggered past, and sometimes suppressed, traumas of living with violence and sexual assault. The harsh images and testimonies from the war have caused some to enter states of medical post-trauma, requiring urgent help.

For those agunot who are directly affected, losing family members in war, running for shelter from rockets, or living in areas that were evacuated, the reality is sometimes almost too much to bear. For example, one client, whose marital home had been divided into two separate units as she fought for her divorce, was evacuated along with her violent husband to a small hotel room. Another, just after giving birth, was evacuated from a southern city with her newborn, forced to live alone in an unfamiliar environment.

We’ve established two teams to address the needs of these women, whom we consider family: A practical support team handles essentials, such as food distribution, and a round-the-clock social team operates out of a command center. This social team is able to deliver immediate trauma counseling and address other urgent needs as soon as they arise.

But even as we help meet these urgent and ongoing needs, our legal and halachic teams are thinking of the future, and how we can prevent further tragedy and suffering. 

Worst case scenarios

ADDITIONALLY WE are now concerned with situations in which a husband is missing in war and presumed dead, but not officially declared so; in such cases, the wife is considered married forever and is unable to remarry.

To address this and similar scenarios, such as soldiers becoming incapacitated and unable to grant a get, we are promoting a simple solution: A soldier can sign a document authorizing Israeli rabbis to grant his wife a get in the case that he is presumed dead for a specified amount of time, or becomes medically incapacitated. This preemptive measure essentially provides a “key to freedom,” ensuring that, should the need arise, the wife can eventually remarry and build a family.

In the first phase, we decided – with due caution – to make this information accessible to rabbis and people on the home front. If soldiers ask, these communal leaders should know how to answer. We flooded social networks with information, along with a halachic authorization document (also including cases of agunot due to medical conditions), making it easy to download and sign.

After six months, we raised the issue in the Knesset, inviting representatives from the Chief Rabbinate and the Military Rabbinate, and demanded their involvement in promoting the document to prevent future agunot. We are still waiting for them to embrace this important mission. After a year of war and in consultation with experts, it is time to issue a loud and clear call: A life-saving document exists, and we have an obligation to promote it.

This obligation is clear in Jewish teaching and tradition. There is a midrash that the warriors of King David’s house would write a bill of divorce for their wives before going to war. Even in modern times, during World War I and WWII, men would sign an authorization document granting a divorce before going to war.

Almost all the sages of the last generation supported such an authorization, akin to a power of attorney for all the rabbis of Israel, in which the husband requests that should he not return from war, a get be granted to his wife so that she would not remain an aguna.

We know that this document has been part of the military regulations since the days of Israel’s War of Independence and that it can save women. We know that the reason soldiers are not asked to sign it is the concern of harming morale and fighting spirit. But it should be the exact opposite! This document can help our married soldiers feel more at peace as they carry out their critical mission.

The sense is that the issue of agunot is highly sensitive, so it remains hidden, only adding to the suffering. We act and pray for an end to this tragedy, along with our daily prayers for the families of fallen soldiers and wounded fighters, and a speedy return of the hostages. We must use the tools embedded in our tradition. The Torah was given for life, not for sorrow. Let us care for the women who most need us – now, and for the future.

The writer is director of Yad La’isha: The Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center for Agunot, a division of Ohr Torah Stone.