A 16-year struggle by a Jewish woman to obtain a divorce reached its earlier this week. The case had gained media and public attention over the years due to the influential nature of the get-refuser's father and the lengths the rabbinical court was willing to go in order to achieve this result.
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The woman, D., had suffered a serious stroke, leaving her debilitated. Hearing the diagnosis, her husband abandoned the family, yet refused to grant her a divorce.
In 2012, D turned to Yad La'isha, the Legal Aid Center for agunot run by Ohr Torah Stone, for help in her case. Upon review, her advocate recognized that the husband's recalcitrance was actually being directed by his father, an influential figure in the ultra-orthodox community.
Faced with the husband's continued refusal to grant D. her freedom, over the past year the Rabbinical Court decided to intensify pressure with massive fines for every day that the husband refused to acquiesce. An additional fine of $120,000 was placed on the husband in New York in a local civil court case to pay for the back-owed child support.
As a result of these continued combined measures, the man finally agreed to grant D. a divorce.
"It's incredibly emotional," said Pnina Omer, Director of Yad La'isha. "The road that Jewish women are sometimes forced to take to freedom is all too often more than an individual can handle. We can therefore only hope for halachic solutions that will present a lasting answer for agunot."
