Protecting Jewish women from agunah status | The Jerusalem Post

jpost.com · Mar 1, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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ByRACHEL LEVMOREMARCH 1, 2026 09:12We are resilient even though we are still at war. The people of Israel are aware that an attack may occur at any given moment, but still live their lives to the fullest. We go about our daily activities in a normal manner, encompassing both tragic occurrences and joyous occasions.A crucial contributing factor to our resilience is that we are prepared. The entire civilian population has been trained by the IDF Home Front Command on what action to take in the event of an attack. Preventative measures have been put into place to protect our lives. Even children know the drill – if needed, go to the safe room that has been pre-stocked with all our necessities.We are all aware that individuals cannot prevent a strike from occurring. Nevertheless, from within that knowledge, we act in a preventative manner to protect ourselves and to minimize the damage should the worst happen.As adults, we should apply the same principle, leaving our emotions aside, to prevent married women from becoming agunot – “chained women.” Just as we do our utmost to protect our lives and health even as we are aware that soldiers fall in battle and terror can strike us, God forbid, we must protect the daughters of Israel from becoming “living widows.”The “classic” agunah (as distinguished from the victim of get-refusal – a husband refusing to grant a divorce) is found in our sources (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Yevamot 121) as a woman whose husband has disappeared and there is no halachic evidence or testimony that can help establish his status. A husband’s status directly determines his wife’s personal status: if he is alive, then she is a married woman; if he is dead, she is a widow. As long as he is missing without proof of life or death, then she is a “living widow” – an agunah for the rest of her life.A WOMAN seeking divorce in a ‘beit din’ was the sole female in the room until the advent of ‘toanot.’ (Illustrative) (credit: Laura Ben David, Jewish Life Photo Bank)New circumstances for a woman to become an 'agunah'Today, additional circumstances can cause a woman to become an agunah, beyond what is described in the Talmud. Modern medicine has made it possible for an individual who suffered a catastrophic injury to live on indefinitely in a permanent vegetative state (PVS). Medical technology can keep a man physically alive for years on end, all the while lacking cognitive awareness. In this dire situation, the wife is not a widow but an agunah.An agunah lives in existential limbo, without a partner at her side and with no father to her children. As a husbandless wife, the depths of her loneliness and pain are profound. Unable to rebuild her life, she – along with her children, her extended family, and community – all suffer. As a result, Jewish society is weakened from within.All of this can be avoided in our troubling times by preparing available preventative actions. There are two such halachic measures that can be employed in an autonomous manner – one prior to marriage and one for married couples.The Tripartite Agreement (found at jewishprenup.org) is a halachic prenuptial agreement. Signed immediately prior to the wedding ceremony, the groom and bride instruct a Rabbinical Court how to act should a wife ask the court to free her from the status of an agunah. If fifteen months have passed since the last time the couple lived together under the same roof, the court is authorized and instructed to act based on several halachic mechanisms contained in the document, to give the wife a get (divorce document) as the husband’s proxy. Thus, the agunah is able to rise from tragedy and create a life for herself and her children.The IDF Rabbinate provides any married soldier or reservist, upon request, with a military document of “Wartime Authorization to Give a Get.” Originally authored by IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren in 1948, the signed document authorizes the Rabbinical Court to give the soldier’s wife a get if a year has passed without the husband’s appearance and no halachic evidence of death.During the current war, the IDF Rabbinate added another possible condition – that of a husband injured and lying in a PVS. Ordinarily, the unclear halachic status of the soldier would cause his wife to be an agunah. The soldier who asks his unit’s rabbi to arrange the signing of this document does so out of love for his wife and family – protecting her in the possible heartbreaking situation that he can no longer care for her. By proper preparation, he is safeguarding his wife’s resilience.Should tragedy strike by a husband’s disappearance or injury leading to a PVS, there is no need to compound the unavoidable pain with no possibility of recovery of remaining loved ones. By employing one of these measures and signing the appropriate document, a man gains peace of mind that he has done everything possible to ensure a good life for his spouse and children, even in the most tragic of circumstances. Resilience of our Jewish society can be maintained even in the direst of circumstances – as expressed by “Am Yisrael Chai!”International Agunah Day falls annually on the Fast of Esther – this year, March 2, 2026.The writer is director of the Agunah and Get-Refusal Prevention Project of Young Israel in Israel (yiisrael.com) and the Jewish Agency. She holds a PhD in rabbinic law, is a co-author of the Agreement for Mutual Respect, author of the Hebrew book Spare Your Eyes Tears on halachic prenuptial agreements, and the first female rabbinical court advocate to sit on the Israel Commission for the Appointment of Rabbinical Court Judges.