Overview

For three decades Susan Aranoff and Rivka Haut have battled to free agunot, Orthodox Jewish women chained to dead marriages because their husbands refuse to give them a gett, a Jewish divorce. These chained women, citizens of modern Western democracies, may be civilly divorced, yet they are forced into rabbinic courts in their quest to obtain a gett. In these rabbinic courts women are subject to financial extortion, pressured to drop charges of domestic violence and paedophilia against their husbands and to concede custody and visitation rights to unfit fathers--all to induce their husbands to free them. Well-versed in the intricacies Jewish divorce law, Aranoff and Haut have counselled thousands of agunot and challenged the Orthodox rabbinate's inaction in the face of the injustices inflicted on these women. Aranoff and Haut take the reader into the rabbinic courts and their ancient, revered legal texts, onto the picket lines against recalcitrant husbands, into American civil divorce courts and legislatures that wrestle with this problem and into the lives of the victimized women and children. The agonies endured by agunot reveal the power of religious law over people's lives even when that law sharply conflicts with modern societies' moral and legal norms.

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9780786479672

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Reviews

“well organized and clearly written…a must-read”—Jerusalem Post; “Susan Aranoff and the late Rivka Haut worked for three decades to liberate Jewish women from sexist Jewish divorce laws...heartfelt and cogently argued case for curbing the authority of rabbinic courts to arbitrate matters of divorce”—Lilith Magazine; “details the struggle that agunot (Jewish women seeking divorces) face when they attempt to leave their marriages...case studies focus on the emotional and spiritual trauma inflicted upon agunot”—ProtoView; “With a wide range of individual women’s stories and a superb discussion of the intricacies of Jewish law, this is a stupendous book on a topic of enormous significance.”—Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College; “Susan Aranoff and Rivka Haut have devoted their lives to fighting tirelessly on behalf of agunot and for a religious system that is just and equitable. This book chronicles the history of those battles, giving voice to the women whose suffering and whose stories have been silenced and ignored for far too long. It should be required reading for anyone who believes that we cannot stand idly by when our neighbor’s blood is being spilled.”—Rabbi Dov Linzer, Rosh HaYeshiva, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; “Aranoff and Haut combine a balanced, sophisticated approach to real cases of Agunot with all the passion and pathos necessary to bring their harrowing experiences to life.”—Rabbi Asher Lopatin, President, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School.

Aranoff and Haut combine a balanced, sophisticated approach to real cases of Agunot with all the passion and pathos necessary to bring their harrowing experiences to life. -- Rabbi Asher Lopatin, President, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School Rabbi Asher Lopatin, President, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School

Author Information

Susan Aranoff is a professor of economics at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, USA. She has published numerous articles about women and Jewish law in anthologies and periodicals and lectured throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Israel. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, USA. The late Rivka Haut was a Jewish Orthodox scholar, feminist and activist. She held an advanced degree in Talmud, and taught and lectured extensively on Jewish and halachic topics, particularly related to prayer and the Agunah crisis and wrote numerous articles and book chapters. She lived in Bronx, New York, USA.

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