(I removed one name, which was mentioned in regard to a previous story. I'm sure many know the name, but I still don't want to post it.)
Religious divorce in Lakewood: When a private affair becomes a public protest
Gustavo Martínez Contreras
Asbury Park Press
LAKEWOOD - The growing movement to "unchain" Orthodox Jewish women from failed marriages made a loud and boisterous appearance in the township this week, turning an ordinarily private and deeply personal family upheaval into public spectacle.
Several dozen protesters, some local and others traveling from Orthodox communities in Brooklyn, upstate New York and Philadelphia, with many carrying signs, chanting and singing, descended upon a home in the center of town Tuesday evening.
There they prevailed upon the occupants — identified by protesters as the parents of an ex-husband who has refused to give his ex-wife a religious divorce, or "get," releasing her from their failed marriage — to press their son to do just that.
There were colorful smoke bombs, speeches made through a bullhorn, and angry back-and-forth among the different-minded on the scene, all under the watchful eye of at least one authority — Lakewood police officers.
There were no arrests and no violence, save for the flyers that protesters fixed to the home and which were subsequently removed by an onlooker opposed to the message, and torn to shreds.
The demonstration lasted around two hours.
"We're here to get (the ex-wife) free," said Murray Betesh, 44, one of the rally organizers. The Asbury Park Press is withholding details of the identities of the parties because of the private nature of divorce, notwithstanding the very public protest, which was egged on in social media posts. "... Holding them hostage and chaining women (to failed marriages) is not OK. (The ex-wife) deserves her get."
Such demonstrations are uncommon in Lakewood, where the Orthodox dominate civic, religious and cultural life. But Rabbi Meir Goldberg, director of the Rutgers Jewish Xperience and a Lakewood resident, said such public actions against get refusers are gaining steam, thanks in no small part to social media.
Under Orthodox Jewish law, only a husband can grant a divorce. A wife trapped in a failed marriage is regarded as an “agunah,” meaning “chained” woman, because Orthodox Jewish law forbids her to remarry. In rare cases, a man can become an "agun" for the same reasons.
"Sometimes a divorce becomes a battle in the (religious) courts," Goldberg said. "One side may make certain demands which are unreasonable because the husband is just a jerk and sometimes it's the other way around and the husband withholds the get because it's the only way for him to see his children. It gets very complicated."
Jewish news publications have recently become key vehicles for spreading the word about get refusers. Also, articles in mainstream publications like The Lily, published by the Washington Post, and local news sites like Bklyner (pronounced Brooklyner) have shed light on the challenges women face to attain a get.
The Lakewood case was highlighted online by several individuals and groups, including the New York-based Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, which has become instrumental in the fight for women seeking religious divorces. The case of the woman at the center of the Lakewood protest was among a dozen get-refusal cases ORA lists on its website.
Attorney Keshet Starr, 35, ORA's executive director, told the Press that the group's efforts are focused "on destigmatizing and eradicating domestic abuse, empowering Jewish women, and ensuring that Jewish law is not manipulated into a tool of abuse."
At any given time, Starr said, her organization manages about 75 cases of get refusal while helping hundreds of other women initiate the process to attain a get.
Sometimes efforts to secure a get go beyond newspaper articles, social media awareness campaigns and public demonstrations.
In 2015, **************, an expert in Jewish matrimonial law, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after being convicted, along with two other rabbis, of one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, as part of a plot to put pressure on a get-refusing husband.
******* was caught on FBI audio and video tape describing the use of kidnapping, cattle prods, phony license plates, an untraceable cell phone and “muscle men” in an effort to force get-refusing husbands to grant their wives religious divorces.
Prosecutors showed at trial that the "Prodfather" accepted a $60,000 payment to orchestrate a kidnapping in 2013 on behalf of a woman and her brother who turned out to be undercover FBI agents.
The night of the planned kidnapping, federal agents swept into an Edison warehouse and arrested eight alleged members of ********'s team.
In Lakewood Tuesday night, protesters chanted "Shame on you!", "Listen to the Torah! Free (the ex-wife)!" outside the home of who were said to be the parents of the man allegedly refusing the get.
Betesh, the organizer, told the Press that he posted an announcement to his Instagram account letting his 2,710 followers know about the protest. Other people used their Instagram accounts to draw attention to the Lakewood case, including rabbi Efrem Goldberg of Boca Raton, Florida.
Goldberg, who purported to be one of the mediators in the case, did not respond to a request for comment. But in a video posted to his Instagram account, Goldberg said supporters of the woman in the dispute held off on the protest for six months because it is "very public, it involves family members and it's very painful."
"You're seeing online the movement that has begun, a very positive development that has freed many women in the last few weeks alone," Goldberg said in his Instagram video.
The Lakewood demonstration was preceded by a similar protest outside a gated community in Florida, where the ex-husband purportedly lives.
Jewish news outlet Vos Iz Neias? (Yiddish for "What's new?") published on its Instagram account a video from the Florida protest showing rabbi Goldberg leading the demonstration.
Neither the ex-husband nor his parents, the Lakewood residents, could be reached for comment.
While the Lakewood protest remained peaceful for most of the night, there were disagreements among local residents and the protesters.
Harold “Heshy” Tischler, 56, from Brooklyn, a controversial and outspoken figure in the Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey and New York addressed the protest crowd.
"I guess you know who I am, right?" Tischler asked through a bullhorn. "We cannot allow this anywhere. No woman should be an agunah. We need to start this movement and I will travel wherever I need to go to get this gets." The crowd cheered.
Moments later, a man, who identified himself as Joseph Franco and said he had no connection to the family pushed his way through the crowd, walked to the front door of the home and climbed up the stoop to address the crowd in Hebrew while he held flyers he handed out.
A protester, Avi Hershkel, interpreted Franco's message for the Press: "He's saying people think this style of forcing and coercing a get is an abomination. He's concerned that if the woman remarries and has children those children would be excommunicated from the Jewish community."
Hershkel said that he disagreed with Franco's position.
"Nobody's coercing or beating up anybody. There's no 'prodfather' here (in reference to rabbi Epstein)," he said. "We're just asking the family to tell their son to do the right thing."
The protesters, including Tischler, booed Franco and told him to step away. Moments later, when a cold rain began to fall, another man arrived at the scene and tore posters the protesters had posted on the home's windows and door.
Several women confronted him as he tore posters in their faces and called them "losers." A crowd chased him away, while another group remained at the scene. Lakewood police stood by; a police car closed traffic on Fifth Street.
Many of the women said that it was important for them to show up at the protest because they needed to support other women who have not been able to move on with their lives. They said that women had to take a stand.
"If the men would just stop supporting their friends and turning a blind eye to the guy that's abusing his wife and all the smack they talk in shul, we would be making a difference," said Sarah Shidler, 28, of Toms River. "But instead, it's the women here that are coming from Philadelphia, that are coming from New York that are supporting the people. People here need to wake up and not hide like little cowards in their houses. We need to be able to give power to the women."
In a brief phone interview from an undisclosed location, the ex-wife at the center of the dispute told the Press that she felt overwhelmed by the support she received in the Jewish community.
"It's a very serious issue that could not only happen to me," she said. "It could happen to anyone: sister, neighbor, cousins, friends. So, it's really heartwarming to see everyone standing up as a Jewish community together for this human rights issue that we have."
Rabbi Meir Goldberg warned people not to jump to conclusions about the Lakewood case, without knowing more. "I think people make this mistake, in our community or outside our community ... they jump to an assumption about something and it may not be the case because they don't know the details," he said.
The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot site displays photographs of men who have refused their ex-wives the get despite Jewish courts ruling that they should.
Under a tab for "Recalcitrant Parties," the ex-husband in the Lakewood case is cited.
The organization writes that, according to Jewish law, if a husband or wife disobeys the ruling of a Jewish court to either issue or receive a get, they're held in contempt of court.
The religious court may later issue a document called the seruv that indicates that a party has refused to comply with a Jewish court, ORA says in its website.
The website also shows the order of contempt that the Beth Din of America, the top Jewish court in the country, purportedly issued in the Lakewood case.
Attorney Starr, ORA's executive director, traveled to Lakewood to show support for the woman at the center of the protest. The Jewish court order on ORA's website says the woman is free to "pursue any remedies permitted by secular law."
Starr said that the purpose of protests is to "encourage people to do the right thing" and to give the Jewish divorce "and allow the other person to move on." She added that such actions only come after "amicable means of resolution" fail.
"If we're not able to do that, sometimes you're best option is to make something public," Starr said.
