Jewish Times, March 23, 2007:
After a spirited debate on the floor of the Senate last Friday, March 16, the get bill went down in defeat. Del. Samuel "Sandy" Rosenberg (D-41st), lead sponsor of a companion House bill dealing with Jewish legal divorce decrees, said he has withdrawn his bill from consideration.
"Once a bill is dead in one house, you don't move in the other house," he said, referring to the Senate and the House of Delegates. "It would meet the same fate."
The defeat in the Senate came on third reader, the final step in approval. There are a total of 47 state senators. At the vote, 44 senators were present. The vote split 22 to 22. A constitutional majority of 24 votes is required to pass a bill regardless of how many senators are in the room.
The list of Senators for and against is fascinating. It was not a party-line vote, with prominent liberals and conservatives on each side "yea" and "nay." Senator Jamie Raskin (D-20), a law professor at American University, opposed the bill despite his sympathy with the pain of
agunot or wives unable to remarry or to divorce religiously. His very liberal neighbor Senator Paul Pinsky (D-22) supported the bill.
The comments from some Senators about Orthodox Jewish women being able to "convert" to Conservative or Reform Judaism as a "solution" struck me as the best
ad hominem argument as to why this bill should have gone down in defeat: religion is too serious and personal a matter to be handled competently, let alone constitutionally, by the results of election-year whims. I doubt that the speakers would have been as likely to suggest that an observant Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox parishioner could simply become a Unitarian as a solution to a difficult and painful religious point affecting religiously observant Catholics or Eastern Orthodox.
That said, I guess I am glad the bill went down for the constitutional reasons that Raskin noted. But the sheer injustice of the situation appalls me. I understand that complex
halachic issues are in play. But if my religion says I can beat my wife, and I beat her, and she divorces me, there ought to be a penalty against me, and one that I cannot duck by hiding under the First Amendment. Women like Cynthia Ohana might not even be able to benefit from this type of law; it can't make her husband do the right thing, only stop him from using the civil courts to his financial advantage while he does the wrong thing.
What little I know about Jewish law (REAL little) leaves me aghast that this situation can continue; it seems so foreign to the general concerns in Jewish law about preventing grossly inequitable results and oppression against the circumstantially weak. This is the tradition that established the principle that giving
tzedakak(h) ("charity" but with an emphasis on justice and equity) in a way that allows the recipient and donor not to know each other's identity was ideal, so that neither would be shamed or embarrassed or resentful regarding the matter. But the men who do this seem to do so with impunity, with no hope of an equitable remedy for the
chained anchored wife (the literal meaning of
agunahot), and for their wives there is no concern for their dignity or suffering. And the one thing that might make some of these men think about releasing their wives - meeting another woman for whom they might actually want to leave their wives for good - is both unlikely practically (would women knowingly volunteer), probably partially banned under Jewish law and puts another Jewish woman under this potential "thumb."
What a more-or-less secular gentile like myself thinks of Jewish law is meaningless of course. I have no stake in the argument. But to me, at least, it is amazing that any member of these men's families, their mothers, their sisters, their neighbors and the people who sell them groceries and greet them in community life would find them acceptable or speak to them. THAT is the scandal. In my view, a man who holds his wife captive like this - for years after she has unequivocally stated she wants out - is not a man, but a disgusting animal, like a rat or a vulture, and deserves no respect as a man. If I am being too harsh or unfair, someone please show me how I am being harsh to these men.
The following is NOT aimed at any particular prominent case but is a general speculation without evidence. I speculate about how many of these men are on the "down-low" i.e. are sexually active with men. I wonder because they would seem to be the most likely candidates to consider chaining a wife. They have a wife - an important part of Jewish religious life for men - but they have her at arm's length while they stay "married." Divorce and remarriage are permitted in the Jewish tradition but an in-the-closet gay man then divorced might lead to a lot of awkward questioning by a new bride to be. Plus, if he is gay, having her as an intimate partner is not the issue, but rather (I speculate) maintaining the cover that all is normal. I may be completely off of my rocker here, and my goal is not to be offensive, but there has to be a cause for this cruelty and it may be easier to be known as a cruel husband who won't release his wife than to increase one's chances of getting "outed" somehow as gay. If this is offbase or outrageous to suggest, please feel free to slap me in the face in the comments.
UPDATE: From an old article in the
Jewish Times, October 6, 2006:
For the past eight months, the Rabbinic Council of Greater Baltimore, also known as the Vaad HaRabbonim, has banned Mr. Ohana from area synagogues and Jewish homes. In a letter posted in area synagogues dated Feb. 17, 2006, Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, president of the Rabbinic Council, wrote, "Mr. Ohana has conducted himself in a manner that is unacceptable and that will not be tolerated within our community. As such, we declare Mr. Ohana persona-non-grata within our community."
Rabbi Moshe Hauer of B'nai Jacob Shaarei Zion, and a member of the Rabbinic Council, added, "We're trying every which way to bring across to Ephraim that granting the get is the right and appropriate thing to do. Once he does that, we look forward to welcoming him back to the community and we will offer him every opportunity to appear before a Bais Din."
Rabbi Yitzchok Breitowitz, of Woodside Synagogue in Silver Spring and a professor of law at University of Maryland Baltimore, also sympathizes with Mrs. Ohana.
"Unfortunately, there are people who use the get to victimize, and this is a very repulsive and repugnant thing to do," said Rabbi Breitowitz. "Even if there are disagreements, a get should not be used as blackmail or a bargaining chip."
More like this. As I noted in the comments, Unitarians and Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists cannot solve this issue at State Circle.
Labels: Bill of Rights (U.S.), Constitution, divorce, Jewish community
