Monthly Archives: June 2021

For over a decade Stephen Tobolowsky has been sharing stories. Have you heard the one about his Talmud collection?

The 70-year-old actor, known for his turns as a folksy insurance salesman in Groundhog Day and a hapless tech sociopath in Silicon Valley, has written two books, hosts a podcast and is now debuting an audio play chronicling his friendship with a Holocaust survivor and his own journey of grief. Produced by LA Theatre Works, its called A Good Day at Auschwitz, and is in fact unsparing when it comes to the many, many bad days. The show is just one part of a late onset spiritual development in a life whose arc he likens to the Five Books of Moses. In explaining it, he started with his own origins, or Genesis.

Photo by David Carlson

Stephen Tobolowsky

Tobolowsky grew up in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. His grandfather was one of the founders of the citys Orthodox Congregation Tiferit Israel. But his religious observance didnt match that pedigree.

We werent even really Reform, Tobolowsky tells me from his home in Los Angeles. There were members of the Nazi party I mean the people who paid the dues, who took Stormtrooper magazine, who had a bust of Adolf Hitler in their den and German flags. There were more people like that in my community than there were Jews.

His parents were very wary of antisemitism, and so they kept a low profile when it came to outward shows of faith. When Tobolowsky moved to LA, he promised his mother hed go to shul. It wasnt until the 90s when he really made good on the promise what he calls a Leviticus moment of midcourse direction, urged on by fellow actor Larry Miller. Tobolowsky started learning from a rabbi operating out of a house in Studio City, studying the Torah scrolls letters on the bimah on days when there wasnt a minyan.

In 2007, catastrophe struck. Tobolowskys mother died and saying Kaddish became his daily ritual at Adat Ari El in North Hollywood. One morning an 80-something-year-old guy shuffled up to him. He guessed Tobolowsky was there for his mother just from the way he said Kaddish. That encounter grew to a years-long friendship between Tobolowsky and the man, Abe Sarna, who survived three years in Auschwitz and regularly plied Tobolowsky with early morning shots of Canadian Club and stories. The stories were often bawdy, sometimes chilling with their insight into human cruelty and surprising in their demonstrations of kindness in the midst of wholesale murder.

Photo by Stephen Tobolowsky

Abe Sarna was a regular at morning minyan and a killer card player who loved schnapps.

A Good Day at Auschwitz, which had a previous life on two episodes of Tobolowskys podcast and chapters in his 2017 book on faith, Adventures with God, follows Sarnas remembrances of the death camp and his youth in a small town in Poland. But while Sarnas life is remarkable and hes wonderfully rendered by veteran actor Alan Mandell casual fans of Tobolowsky might be struck by just how Jewish the play is. In it, the actor-writer, who portrays himself, unpacks the meaning of the word tzedakah and cites Barry Holtz of the Jewish Theological Seminary. When he came on my Zoom screen it all clicked.

Framed by huge, voiceover-grade headphones and a tad obscured by the windscreen of his microphone (a high mediocre audio setup), Tobolowsky was also backed by books. Dark-spined books that I suspected, and later confirmed, were books of Talmud and Midrash and chumashim. He started reading Talmud around 2008, after falling off a horse in a strong gust of wind near an active volcano in Iceland, causing what was referred to, quite ludicrously, by a doctor as a fatal injury, a neck broken in five places.

With his trademark zeal, propelled by gasps over the wonder of the box of jewels that is his heritage, he pulled out a volume of the Commentators Bible (the Readers Digest of Wisdom). Right now he loves an exegesis of Nachmanides on the first word in Exodus.

Its mind boggling, the inner stories of stories, Tobolowsky said, but you know, you wouldnt know it without a scorecard.

At times, it was hard to keep up with Tobolowskys own stories. Hed circle back and wonder how he got from point A to B, but seemed very excited to be picking up a Jewish theme. He loved telling me about his recently wrapped film, Stay@Home, a comedy by director and pop punk idol L.E. Staiman, who is Orthodox. Tobolowsky marveled at how the devout production staff started smoking doobies around lunchtime and kept a rare Shabbat-observant set.

That story of shomer production and kosher weed quickly careened into one in which Tobolowsky spoke of pulling a reverse Sandy Koufax, working on Yom Kippur to finish a complicated season finale of the rebooted One Day at a Time, a beloved sitcom that was regularly under threat of being cancelled. When he decided to come in to shoot, Norman Lear hugged him and they traded tales of Yom Kippurs past.

With Sarna, Tobolowsky was in the position of chronicler, taking notes as his drinking and poker buddy held forth about his the ghetto, the judenrat, the bastards who killed because they could and the unexpected love he found in the camp. For once Tobolowsky wasnt the biggest character in the room. In fact, for a time in their acquaintance he couldnt even speak due to a vocal cord injury that required surgery.

He loved it when I couldnt talk, Tobolowsky said. Then he had the full stage.

Photo by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky

Alan Mandell and Stephen Tobolowskyat the first (pre-pandemic) reading forA Good Day at Auschwitz.

Tobolowsky, referring to the Five Book-structure of our lives, locates Abes experience in the Book of Numbers, with love and loss. But in sharing it with the world, hes doing the work of Deuteronomy, sharing the story with the next generation and an act of remembrance.

While recording the play had its challenges he and Mandell werent even in the same room for audio considerations, not COVID ones collecting memories from Sarna was easy. Yet the ending only came to Tobolowsky after Sarna passed away in 2010.

During one of their first lunches together, Abe told a story about a tallis two men found in the woods and each argued over who should keep it based on who gave more money to the shul or who studied more Torah. He asked Tobolowsky if he knew who got it, not knowing it himself.

Over a year later, Tobolowsky would learn that Sarna first heard this story in cheder the day the Nazis invaded. His teacher rushed out and they never finished the lesson.

One day Tobolowksy found this exact story in the Talmud. He had his answer and his ending. And all of it came out of chance.

It is amazing, he said. And accidental! If it hadnt been for catastrophe, it wouldnt have happened.

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Stephen Tobolowsky has a Talmud story to tell you - Forward

Last week, the GOP may have filibustered the future of American democracy. Senate Republicans used this parliamentary tactic to prevent the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. When the vote fell short of 60 the threshold needed to pass the measure the Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, told reporters he was very, very disappointed, very frustrated that politics has trumped literally and figuratively the good of the country.

But the vote did not trump Manchins adamant opposition to eliminating the practice of the filibuster. Im not willing to destroy our government, he declared in the same briefing with reporters. Q.E.D. Even extra-terrestrials now know that as Manchin goes, so goes the filibusters fate: In the evenly split Senate, this conservative Democrats vote is, in effect, the only vote that counts.

Inevitably, Manchins stance has caused lots of teeth gnashing among most anyone who cares about our nations fate. Unfortunately, it has caused little reflection over the legitimacy of Manchins reasons. A thought experiment might help. What if we were to imagine ourselves not in a nation hurtling towards disaster but instead on a trolley car hurtling towards a group of rail workers? Or, for that matter, standing between a group of people and an arrow hurtling towards them?

Thanks to the recent television series The Good Place, which managed to make viewers both chuckle over and chew on serious philosophical questions, trolleyology has become something of a thing. The term refers to an ethical dilemma posed by the philosopher Philippa Foot a half-century ago: You are standing near a track-changing lever when you see a runaway trolley car barreling towards five rail workers. By pulling the lever, you can divert the trolley to another track. But wait there, too, is a rail worker.

What do you do?

With great concision, Foot thus staged the clash between the consequential and deontological schools of moral philosophy. The former, which often goes by the name of utilitarianism, seeks the greatest good or happiness for the greatest number of people. The latter, on the other hand, insists that certain laws or rules must never be broken, even if this means the greatest number will get snookered or have their lives snuffed out.

Foot was the first to propose trolleys, but not the first to pose the moral dilemma. Stretching back as far as antiquity, various biblical passages, from Leviticus to Samuel, riff on the problem. More recently, the 20th century Talmudic scholar Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, known by the same name as his principal work, the Hazon Ish, explored the dilemma. In a work that predates Foots article, Hazon Ish offered the arrow dilemma, where a bystander sees an arrow speeding towards a large group of people. He can deflect it from its course only by redirecting it towards a smaller group.

While the arrow, unless shot by Hawkeye, could not pierce more than one bystander, we nevertheless find ourselves in the same spot as with the trolley: left with only bad choices. What strikes me as crucial is that both halakhic commentaries and philosophical arguments tend to come down squarely on both sides of the question. Take the Hazon Ish, who recognizes the power of the consequential claim We have to try to reduce the loss of Jewish life as much as possible while acknowledging the deontological primacy of the biblical command not to kill. At the end of the day, there is no endpoint to his commentary. It cuts both ways.

Similarly, moral philosophers have debated the trolley problem, along with its many fiendish variations, for the past half-century without reaching an endpoint. In fact, it has meant more than one philosopher reaching for their gun. When David Edmonds, author of Would You Kill the Fat Man: The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong, approached one famous ethicist with the problem, the latter growled: Sorry, I just dont do trolleys.

When it comes to the future of American democracy, though, we have no choice but to do trolleys or arrows. This applies to both consequentialists and deontologists. The first camp, which dominates the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is eager to divert the careening trolley away from the many towards the single worker or, in this case, single rule. If the filibuster stands between efforts to repair the climate, strengthen voting rights and broaden Obamacare, it stands to reason to run it over. As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein notes, the fate of the filibuster looms over every other decision facing the Biden Administration.

Yet the deontologists those who insist on the sanctity of this institutional commandment are no less categorical. Their warning, in effect, is Thou shall not nuke this rule. It is, argues USA Today columnist James Robbins, the last vestige of doing the peoples business that was rooted in the norm of compromise. Once it is kaput, so too will be our political system.

At the end of the day, night always follows. But the difficulties posed by the darkness depend on how well we prepare for it. In the case of the filibuster, as in the case of the trolley, there is no single and right answer. It may well be that our democratic future balances on how closely we attend to and acknowledge the legitimacy of one anothers arguments.

Robert Zaretsky teaches at the University of Houston. His latest book is The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas. He is a contributing culture columnist at the Forward.

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Joe Manchins filibuster-sized Talmudic trolley problem and ours - Forward

A bronze amulet engraved with the name of God and a magical symbol that protects you from demons and curses. Malicious eyesWas handed over to authorities after being excavated in the north Israel 40 years ago.

The amulets that were once worn on necklaces are believed to date back about 1,500 years. Byzantine era, According to the Israeli Antiquities Agency (IAA). At that time, the area was governed by the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire was also called the Byzantine Empire after Byzantium. This was the name of the city at the time (by that time Byzantium was renamed Constantinople and is now Istanbul).

The amulets are engraved with Greek letters, which spell out the name of the Jewish god IAW , in the English alphabet Yahweh.

Archaeologists have discovered a bronze amulet about 3 inches (8 cm) long and 1.5 inches (4 cm) wide near the ancient Jewish synagogue in Abel, just west of the Sea of Galilee. According to IAA archaeologist Eitan Klein, the location and inscription suggest that the amulet may have been worn by Jews, despite its religious origin.

Relation: 30 of the worlds most precious treasures that are still missing

Scholars generally identify wearers of such amulets as Christians and Gnostics, but the fact that amulets were found in Jewish settlements, including synagogues, in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Is [A.D.] Even the Jews of the time may have shown that they wore this type of amulet to protect themselves from the evil eye and the devil. Said in a statement..

This type of amulet was relatively common in the Galilee region at the time and in what is now Lebanon. They are sometimes known as a form of Solomons Mark named after the legendary King of Israel. On one side, a horse riding a sprinting horse is depicted, its head surrounded by a halo, and a spear piercing the figure of a woman lying on her back. The Greek inscription on the jockeys head says the only god to conquer evil, and the Greek letter IAW is engraved under the horses legs.

On the other side, an arrow-pierced eye and a bifurcated object are drawn. The eyes appear to be threatened by the appearance of two lions, one snake underneath, one scorpion, and one bird, above which the Greek letter meaning the only god The abbreviation is engraved.

Amulets may have been produced in the area to protect themselves from the magical curse known as the devil and the evil eye. This belief was retained in the ancient world at least until the 6th century BC. According to this belief, some sorcerers can level the curse with a malicious gaze, although the recipient may suffer injuries or misfortunes.

The rider is depicted as overcoming evil spirits. In this case, [Greek] The mythical figure Gello or Gillow, who threatens women and children and is associated with the evil eye, said Klein. The back eye is being attacked and defeated by various means. Identifiable. Therefore, the guard may have been used to protect the body from the evil eye, perhaps to protect women and children.

This amulet was discovered in the ancient Jewish settlement of Alber about 40 years ago by a founding member of nearby Moshav, a type of community farming community founded by Israeli pioneers in the 1920s.

The family of the discoverer, who is now dead, recently handed over the amulet to the Israeli Antiquities Department, and Klein advised people with similar treasures to do the same.

This amulet is believed to date back to the end of the Talmud era in Jewish history, formalizing traditional Jewish theology and law into a collection of works known as the Talmud. Klein said the Alber synagogue is often mentioned in historical sources from the Talmud era. There was a linen manufacturing industry, where many Jewish sages visited and taught.

Initially published in Live Science.

The ancient magical amulet used to repel the evil eye was rediscovered 40 years later.

Source link The ancient magical amulet used to repel the evil eye was rediscovered 40 years later.

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The ancient magical amulet used to repel the evil eye was rediscovered 40 years later. - Eminetra

The famed French writer Alexander Dumas, author of such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo, tells what happened when, as a child, he lost his father:I remained thoughtful for a while. Though such a child, and unable to reason, I understood nonetheless that something final had happened in my life I reached the small rooms where arms were kept; I took down a single-barreled gun which belonged to my father, and which had often been promised to me when I grew up. Then, armed with the gun, I went upstairs. On the first floor I saw my mother. She was coming out of the death chamber; she was in tears. Where are you going? she asked Im going to the sky dont stop me. And what are you going to do in the sky, my poor child? Im going to kill God, who killed father.The impulse to punish God for the sufferings of human beings is an ancient one. After the dispiriting report of the spies, the Israelites contemplate stoning Aaron and Moses out of fury (Numbers 14:10). The verse continues, When the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting. In the Talmud (Sotah 35a) Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba says, This teaches that they took stones and threw them at the sky as if to throw them at God.

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Parashat Shelah: Fighting the impulse to blame God - The Jerusalem Post

Are we able to defeat giants? The Torah tells us that the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael were yelidei hoanak, remnants of a race of giants. When the meraglim returned with their report, they announced: The people that dwell in the land are fierce, and the cities are fortified and very great. Moreover, we saw the children of giants there (Bamidbar 13:28). The parsha also makes reference to the anshei middot, men of great stature, and the nefillim, primeval giants (Bamidbar 13:32-33).

The Torah wants to impress upon us that it was not bigness which was required to conquer and hold the Holy Land but greatness. The spies used the wrong measuring rod of bigness, and that was their tragic and fatal error. However, G-d desires greatness, not bigness.

This idea of bigness versus greatness is expressed in many places in Tanach. Yitzchak referred to Eisav as bno hagadol [his big son] (Bereishit 27:2). The Talmud comments, G-d said to Yitzchak, By your standards Eisav may be big; but by My standards Eisav is a dwarf among dwarves (Bereishit Rabba 65:11).

In the 16th Chapter of Shmuel I, we are given a beautiful description of the Biblical concept of greatness, in contrast to the popular concept of bigness. The prophet Shmuel is sent to Bethlehem to select a successor to Shaul HaMelech for the kingship. One by one, Shmuel looks upon the sons of Yishai and thinks that this one or that one is the anointed one of G-d, but G-d says to him: Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature for it is not as a person sees; for a person looks on the outward superficial appearance, but G-d looks into the heart of a human being (Shmuel I 16:7).

And so it is little David, though short in stature, who is selected, not by the standard of bigness, but by the measuring rod of greatness.

Bigness is measured from the chin down, but greatness is measured from the chin up. A person may be the biggest and tallest player in the NBA and still be a mental midget. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their number than the greatness of a person is determined by his height. This is certainly true in the case of Israel. As the Torah says: For you are a Holy People to your G-d G-d did not choose and desire you because you were more in number than any people, for you are the fewest of all nations (Devarim 7:6-7).

We were selected because of greatness, because we are an am kadosh (a holy people), and not for our size and numbers. When we are counted, it is from the chin up: Ki tisa et rosh bnei Yisrael (when you raise up the head of Israel) (Shemot 30:11). The Torah also says Naso et rosh (when you lift up the head) (Bamidbar 4:22).

Judaism is a religion which does not stress bigness. For bigness, a key word in our society today, is very often bought at the expense and pain of others. However, true greatness is attained by developing the best talents within ourselves.

That is why the am kadosh never had to fear the bnei anak, the giants. For ultimately our spiritual greatness will triumph over the giants mere bigness.

Thus, the end of the parsha of the spies deals with the mitzvah of tzitzit. Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, ztl, explains that the blue techelet of tzitzit is a symbol that all events in life are as profound and mysterious as the deep blue sky. The Talmud in Menachot states that the blue techelet of tzitzit reminds us to look up at the blue heavens and admire the incredible, vast expanse of endless space, leading to its Source, the Ein Sof of G-d.

As Tehillim 19:2 states, The Heavens tell the glory of G-ds greatness. By admiring and appreciating G-ds greatness and goodness, we can achieve our own greatness and goodness as well.

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Were The Spies Justified In Fearing The Giants? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

On Route 59 in Monsey, New York, an Orthodox Jewish enclave in upstate New York, there is a large billboard that says in big block letters: Dovid Wasserman. Give your wife a get!

A get is a document Orthodox Jewish men give their wives as the couple is divorcing; it seals the divorce according to religious law, meaning that the husband decides if and when the divorce is final. Without it, the woman cannot move on with her life.

The billboard is meant to embarrass Dovid Wasserman, who for more than seven years has refused to give his wife, Nechama Wasserman, this document. If she doesnt receive it, she is considered an agunah, a chained woman, because she remains chained to her former marriage.

Shes now trying a new tactic: public humiliation.

Aside from the billboard, two rallies have been held on her behalf, one in March in front of the home of Dovid Wassermans mother, Rivka, where Dovid is now living, and another in April in front of the private girls school in Airmont, at which she teaches.

In a 2019 interview with the podcast Halacha Headlines, Nechama Wasserman said: Its mind-boggling, and its hard for people to understand. Hes not asking for anything. Hes not asking for money. Hes not saying that Im taking his money. He simply wants me to come back. Thats what he tells people. That its all a mistake and Im going to come back.

About 10% of US Jews identify as Orthodox, and their divorce rate is only about 10%. While divorce is not considered a sin, it is socially frowned upon. Some would even call it a tragedy, particularly because in Judaism the home is the center of life.

The Talmud states that when a couple divorces, the altar that was in the Temple in Jerusalem, cries for them, said Rabbi Meir Goldberg of the Meor Rutgers Jewish Xperience, a Jewish educational organization at Rutgers University.

Nechamas saga is not the only one being publicly aired. In the last two months, nearly a dozen Orthodox women have taken their cases public by using the online version of a billboard: social media.

Women in this community are posting about the plights of various agunot and their recalcitrant husbands on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and on Jewish media websites, to shine a light on these so-called get-refusers. The hope is that if the husbands arent sensitive to public pressure, maybe their families will be.

In the beginning, the siblings may think, ah, my brothers crazy, or Im not getting involved, or its too political. But all of a sudden, when their names are publicized everywhere, and its not just their brother but about them, things get a lot more intense, said a woman involved in the publicity campaign who preferred anonymity because she feared speaking out publicly might jeopardize Wassermans get.

The movement, as some are calling it, began last March when Dalia Oziel, an Instagram influencer and singer in the Orthodox community, began posting about a woman called Chava Herman Sharabani, who married her husband, Naftali Eyal Sharabani in 2006, but they divorced in 2010 in civil court. Since then, he has refused to give her a get and will not appear before a beth din, or Jewish court.

Using the hashtag Free Chava, Oziel posted a video montage of Chava and her two daughters, now 12 and 14, as theyve grown up, underscoring how much time has passed that Chava has been waiting to be released from her marriage.

The posts were shared by some of Oziels 34,500 followers as well as other Instagram influencers, pinging on computers from Monsey down to Boca Raton, Florida, and as far west as Los Angeles.

Oziel also helped Chava Sharabani, a third-grade teacher, launch a GoFundMe-type campaign called the Chesed fund with the hope of raising $40,000. At last count, they had raised $86,766.

There are people who work within this space who are saying theyre seeing a trend among men who would otherwise be the perfect villains for get withholding, and that theyre scared because they know that right now, theres such an intolerance for it, said Adina Miles-Sash, known on Instagram as Flatbush Girl. They dont want to be the next face all over social media.

Miles-Sash has been using her 52,300 followers on Instagram to plead Nechama Wassermans case, as well as the plight of a handful of other women.

She likened this moment to a meteor hitting the earth. While Miles-Sash has championed feminist causes for years, most of the other influencers now involved in this campaign have not. In fact, they typically toe the Orthodox female line. One uses Instagram to sell lipsticks that stay for the entirety of shabbat. Another sells wigs. A third sells cozy blankets. But when they decided to come forward on this issue, they made sure their husbands and rabbis approved of everything they said, and they didnt make statements they couldnt support. That has lent legitimacy and credibility to the movement, Miles-Sash said.

They offered an angle: that you can be observant, and you can be maternal and nurturing and a mother, and your domain could be the home and maybe a job, but that you can also stand alongside other women and advocate for their rights, she said.

This measured approach spawned a large grassroots campaign among women who would otherwise be hesitant to get involved, said Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, a journalist in Manhattan who is a member of the Orthodox Jewish community.

Thats one of the main factors that has shifted, Goldschmidt said. These women arent known for taking on the rabbinate. Theyre not known for taking on political issues. Theyre known for posting pictures of the dinners they make or the cute hats theyre wearing, and suddenly theyre going into this. Thats the shift.

Theres no shortage of agunot causes to take on. Keshet Starr, executive director for the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA), says at any one time she has about 75 cases. While women can also hold up a divorce by refusing to accept a get thats given to them, 95% of ORAs cases involve men withholding them.

Withholding the get is a way for a husband to maintain control. It is a way of manipulating Jewish law in order to retain power and control over your partner, Starr said. In the vast majority of the cases we work on, there is a prior history of pretty extensive domestic abuse. This is rarely the first abusive thing theyve done.

When people first hear about this issue, they think, well why doesnt the woman just walk away? Starr adds. After all, if shes already divorced in secular court, theres nothing stopping her from legally remarrying.

But leaving a religious community is a bigger deal than people think: its giving up your entire way of looking at the world, your systems of meaning, your social and professional networks, your family relationships. Its an enormous cost. For someone to be faced with the options of either having this untenable situation or walking away from my community, those are pretty terrible options.

Some men have used the get process to get a leg up in the divorce proceedings, whether its asking for money outright or negotiating a smaller child support payment, said Rabbi Efram Goldberg of the Boca Raton Synagogue.

There are men who will say, Ill tell you what. I will give the get. I want half a million dollars, Efram said. Theyll use it to extort or exploit the negotiations, which is terribly unjust.

He said hes dealing with a case right now involving a couple from Boca Raton, who married in 2009, separated in 2018 and were civilly divorced early last year, but the husband, Aaron Silberberg, has not given his wife, Devorah Silberberg, a get, because he is apparently dissatisfied with the divorce terms hammered out in court.

As far as the secular court is concerned, the custody and financial arrangements have all been concluded, with a final judgment. They are entirely divorced. Theres absolutely no justification for his not giving the get, Goldberg said. The best that we can do is to apply public pressure on him to do whats right.

And thats just what they did, a few weeks ago in Lakewood, New Jersey, when about two dozen people protested outside the home of his parents, and in Boca Raton, where people chanted over and over again, Aaron Silberberg, unchain your wife!

Aaron Silberberg disputes the notion that his divorce has not yet been finalized, in either a secular court, where he says an appeal is still pending, or in a Jewish court, known as a Beth Din.

There are some women who are agunot, and everything is finalized and theres nothing more. Perhaps giving a get in that situation would make sense, he said. In my situation, she still has to come to Beth Din. If she doesnt come, how are we supposed to help her?

Women arent the only ones victimized in the divorce process, said Rabbi Goldberg. While there are undoubtedly men who have abused their power, Goldberg said, there are women who have used the children as leverage, threatening to withhold visitation if they dont obtain the financial or custody arrangements they seek in the divorce negotiations.

He said he has several friends in that situation and has heard of men withholding a get because theyre afraid if they hand it over, they wont ever see their children.

Thats sometimes the instigator for why men act the way they do, Goldberg said. Theres bad players on both sides.

He notes that outside the home, men seem to hold the power in the relationship, but inside the home, women run the show.

While that may be the case, men in an Orthodox marriage, by virtue of the fact that they get to hand over a get or not hold the divorce power. In Israel, men who withhold gets can be jailed, their drivers license or medical license can be taken away. In America, where there is a constitutional separation between church and state, secular courts cannot meddle in a religious agreement.

Secular courts can, however, enforce contracts like pre-nuptial agreements, and thats why some in the Orthodox community have been pushing for pre-nups for years. A typical pre-nup mandates that in case of divorce, the husband will provide the wife with a get, and if he doesnt, he could be forced to pay thousands of dollars a month a financial penalty that a secular court could enforce.

In the Modern Orthodox community, this is routine. And rabbis wont do your wedding unless you sign one of these, said Michael Broyde, a law professor at Emory University School of Law.

Issues involving the get arose as far back as talmudic times 1,500 years ago, when the husband might go off into the forest and not come home, and the wife was stuck because the husband wasnt there to give her a get. In the 1850s, rabbinical courts began functioning as regulators of marriage, so when the parties fought about their divorce, the rabbinical court settled it. And men didnt withhold gets because the rabbinical courts had the power and authority to make sure that didnt happen, Broyde said.

But once Jews moved to places where there was a separation of church and state and religion became more of a voluntary arrangement, rabbinical courts lost their teeth, he said. Putting a financial penalty into a contract that is signed at a Jewish wedding puts teeth back into the process.

The metaphor I use is: theyre not a cure but theyre a vaccine, he said.

So why dont all Orthodox Jews sign them?

Why do people get polio? Why do people get smallpox? he asked. Because there are people out there who resist taking their vaccines.

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Unchain your wife: the Orthodox women shining a light on get refusal - The Guardian