Gitten & Agunos in the news

WP: Sarah Rosenbloom is stuck in a marital netherworld. She and her husband divorced seven years ago in Maryland civil court. But she remains married under Jewish law because he has refused to give her a religious divorce document known in Hebrew as a get .She can't date, let alone remarry, without violating the tenets of her faith -- and the 44-year-old Orthodox Jew is not about to take that step."I truly believe it would be a terrible thing if I acted like I had a get ," said Rosenbloom, an English teacher who lives in Baltimore. "Do I question my faith? Sure. Do I rail against God? Sure. I can always question, but I am not going to give up my Judaism, my religiosity."Her case illustrates a growing debate among Orthodox Jews and members of other faiths over whether ancient religious laws governing divorce need to be adapted to the modern era. Devout people of all faiths are seeking divorce in higher numbers, experts say, which is putting pressure on religious authorities to loosen restrictions. Rosenbloom's predicament would have been unusual in an earlier time. ...Rosenbloom's ex-husband, Sam, who said he is still upset at her after a bitter custody fight, simply ignored the summons from Baltimore's Jewish court and moved to Gaithersburg. He also disregarded a ruling from the same court holding him in contempt. Women in Rosenbloom's situation are called agunah in Hebrew, which means "chained woman." There are no official figures on the number of agunah, but the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot -- a New York-based group that organizes pickets in front of the houses and businesses of men who refuse to give their wives divorces -- said it has been involved in about 100 cases since it formed less than three years ago. There are thousands of such women in New York alone, according to group member Yehoshua Zev.Faced with these contemporary quagmires, some Jewish officials are bending and reinterpreting religious law in an effort to join divine purpose with modern mores.Several Jewish courts in recent years have annulled marriages in cases similar to the Rosenblooms', citing evidence that the marriage was fraudulent -- a misrepresentation by one of the spouses, for example. Many rabbis have criticized those rulings, however, and warned that women who remarry in such cases will be guilty of adultery.The Jewish Press, one of the nation's largest Jewish newspapers, each week runs the names of men who have divorce-related court orders against them in an effort to embarrass them."The agunah problem is a very serious one. [It] is one aspect of a greater recognition of family problems that maybe we've been sweeping under the carpet," said Rabbi Irving Breitowitz, a University of Maryland law professor who wrote a book about agunah. "We are bound by the principles, but we can try to devise new mechanisms."Among the protests held by agunah advocates was one a week ago at Sam Rosenbloom's home in Gaithersburg. A dozen people came out in the rain and began, as usual, with a prayer from the book of Psalms, asking God to hear their plea. "Sam Rosenbloom, give your wife a get ," they chanted. The protests started two years ago and have occurred almost weekly for the past month.But is this what God intended? To Naomi Klass Mauer, an editor at the Jewish Press and a former agunah, the problem is not God or the law but human beings."There is no way the intention would be that a woman should be held up," said Mauer, whose ex-husband withheld a get for four years. "But there are a lot of laws I don't fully understand the reason for, but I believe. I believe that the Torah is divine law. Whether or not I can understand everything with my finite ability -- it would be nice. But just because I can't doesn't mean that I am going to discount the law or pick and choose."....several Maryland rabbis have told their congregants not to buy from an Internet site on which he sells religious goods. "And I pray. I pray a lot."