Modern Technology: Friend or Foe of Agunot?

I just came across a post of a woman who had finally been freed from her status as an agunah after over 25 years. I’m not even 25. This woman has been trapped for more than my entire life. That’s as old as the first mp3 player. That’s older than Google.

The agunot (plural of agunah) of today face vastly different challenges than those of the past. Understanding the history Jewish divorce abuse can help one appreciate the role that religious communities play in their ability to influence recalcitrant husbands, the ways in which fighting recalcitrant husbands have failed or succeeded previously, and why those techniques may not be relevant to the fight of agunot today.

Recalcitrant husbands have not always created agunot by refusing their wives a get. Historically, agunot faced issues like proving that their husband had died. [1] Modern technology makes it much easier to find people, and much harder to hide. However, a husband disappearing or abandoning their wife and family was common prior to advances in modern technology. Following the Holocaust, many women were agunot, not knowing if their husband had survived. Additionally, a husband who has become mentally ill or incapacitated may not have the competence to legally grant a get.[2] The most common problem modern day agunot face, due to advances in technology, is a husband simply refusing to grant a get.[3]

Left with little recourse, agunot of the past were left with the undesirable last resort of fleeing their entire community and starting a new life.[4] As explained in a previous post, there are consequences to women who remarry without a religious divorce, and those consequences carry on beyond the Wife, to any future children she bears.

Escaping and starting a new life was nearly impossible until the start of the twentieth century when women started immigrating to America, leaving behind their husbands, and starting a new marriage, not chained to their past marriage.[5]

While more religious denominations would never consider such an extreme and impermissible response, more liberal denominations have made accommodations to support would-be agunot. For example, the Reform movement allows civil divorce to automatically constitute a religious divorce, and while the Conservative movement still requires the man to grant a get, they have developed strategies to help prevent women from being stuck as an agunah.[6]

The Talmud (the “written law” governing Jewish practice) does not offer annulment as a solution for spousal abandonment for wives; however, if a woman disappears, men are not similarly restrained from remarrying.[7] In the second half of the nineteenth century, 5,348 cases of agunot were identified, and 3,652 in the early twentieth century; many women made agunot through dissertation of their husband to this new world.[8]

Before the world was as transient as we know it today, get refusal was uncommon. Many Jewish people lived in interdependent communities, which acted as a deterrent to prevent men from refusing to grant a get. In these tight-knit, interdependent communities, the man was cast out if he refused to grant a get.[9]

Technology does make it easier to find people who disappear, such as by using social media to track someone down.[10] But technology has also enabled mobility, and communication to exist without the interdependent system that many Jewish families lived in previously.[11]

While technology makes it harder for a husband to abandon his wife, making her an agunah, recalcitrant husbands are also empowered to withhold gets as modern communities are less insular, and people are more transient, thus creating a new weapon of abuse.[12] Men who do not obtain a religious divorce, but obtain a civil divorce, are still free to marry both civilly and religiously; women don’t have the same rights.[13] Technology enables these men to leave behind their ex-wives in the civil court, and remarry without any consequences.

The Instagram post I scrolled upon puts into perspective how technology has both improved and complicated the fight agunot face, it also put into perspective how pervasive this issue is. This post emphasizes the positive role technology plays in the life of a modern agunah. In the post, a woman shares that although it has “been a thorny road, [ ] the burden has been shared with people like you who helped me all the way, through rallies and having his picture and my story up on your website . . . These efforts gave me the feeling that I wasn’t alone.”

Over 25 years is a long time to be fighting for one’s freedom, especially from a prior spouse. However, this agunah explains how technology allows her to feel connected throughout this process, through her ability to share her story with everyone. Technology has impacted, both positively and negatively, the struggles of modern agunot; however, it allows for broader education and connection with a community outside of our immediate physical community that should be seized by those fighting this battle.

As damaging as technology has been, hopefully more agunot can use technology to find each other and build their own communities of support. Ways technology has been used to help agunot is through the access to support groups that technology allows, access to educational resources for couples prior to marriage, and allows for organizing events in support of agunot. One organization providing several of these resources is the foundation, ORA. ORA offers support groups, educational programs such as their campus fellowship program, and they also have an Instagram that helps get information out on recalcitrant husbands to the community. Technology allows opportunities to get involved as an individual. Technology provides individuals with the ability to donate to organizations such as ORA, Dinah, or the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse (JCADA). Technology also allows individuals to follow these organizations on social media, allows participation in ORA’s pre-nuptial services, and provides access to these organization’s resources to learn more about combating domestic violence. For more resources, please see How to Get a Get? Navigating the Loopholes of Jewish Divorce Law.

[1] Jewish Virtual Library https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/agunah (last visited Jan. 15, 2022).

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Jessica Miller, The History of the Agunah in America: A Clash of Religious Law and Social Progress, 19 Women’s Rights L. Rep. 1 (1997), https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1051357.

[5] Id.

[6] Lawrence Goodman, A Feminist Guide to Jewish Divorce, https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2018/december/divorce-judaism-fishbayn%20.html (last accessed Mar. 9, 2022).

[7] Michelle Kariyeva, Chained Against Her Will: What a Get Mean for Women Under Jewish Law, 34 Touro L. Rev. 757, 759, 773 (2018).

[8] Shulamit Magnus, The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/agunot (last visited Mar. 9, 2022).

[9] Id. at 775.

[10]Id.

[11]Id.

[12]Id.

[13]Id. at 759, 773.