One of the first positive results of the Israel-Morocco peace deal was the dramatic release of an agunah from her husband imprisoned in a Moroccan jail.
In a complex operation of both countries’ Batei Din, foreign ministries, prison services and security services, a young Israeli agunah was released from her aginus on Tuesday morning with her long-awaited get.
The story began with the marriage of two young Israelis. Unfortunately, the husband became involved in various criminal offenses, incurred heavy debts and fled to Morocco.
But it seems as if he didn’t learn his lesson. The young husband continued his criminal activities in Morocco, where he was eventually caught and sentenced to a long prison sentence.
The young wife, who remained in Israel, turned to the Beis Din for a get. After hearing the circumstances, they referred her to the Agunot Divison of the Batei Din. The administrator of the Agunot Division, Rav Eliyahu Maimon, and his staff, took swift action on the case and managed to locate the husband’s prison in Casablanca. They contacted the husband, who after a certain amount of convincing, agreed to grant his wife a get.
However, in order to carry out the get, it was necessary for three members of the Beis Din and the Sofer Stam to visit the prison. However, the prison authorities refused to allow this due to coronavirus regulations.
HaRav Eliyahu Abergel, a native of Morocco and former Rosh Avos Batei HaDin in Jerusalem, has extensive connections in Morocco and he succeeded, with the assistance of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, in convincing the Moroccan prison services to allow one dayan to enter the prison. Concurrently, he published a landmark halachic ruling allowing the husband to make one dayan a shlaliach to transfer the get to his wife.
However, to the dayan’s astonishment, when he arrived at the prison in Casablanca, the Muslim prison commander told him that Jewish law requires three dayanim, not only one! The commander instructed the dayan to bring two more dayanim in order for the get to be kosher, reassuring him that he’ll approve their entry.
The dayan immediately summoned two more dayanim from the Casablanca Beis Din and the get was carried out.
The get arrived at the Jerusalem Regional Beis Din on Monday night and the wife, with great thankfulness, arrived at the Beis Din on Tuesday morning to accept the get.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
This is not an aguna case. 1) An aguna is when the husband has disappeared and it is unknown whether he’s alive. All the other so-called modern “aguna” cases are not aguna cases. 2) There’s nothing in this case indicating the husband had any obligation to give a Get. Unless a Beis Din formally rules that a case is one of those rare Halachic cases where a Get is obligatory, then no Get is obligatory.
BH!
Who knows if the whole middle east peace process was for this one woman to get her Get…?
Just curious, does anyone know the basis for the heter mentioned in the article about making the dayan into the shliach of the husband? I was under the impression that eidei mesira were required to be there at the appointment of the shliach. Am I mistaken?
Ujm, where the husband is serving a long prison sentence, especially in another country, it’s obvious that the wife is entitled to a get, so that she should not have to remain a “living widow”.
Ploni, how can you think that the eidei mesirah have to be there at the appointment? The eidei mesirah are in the wife’s location, not the husband’s! They have probably never even laid eyes on the husband. Think of the way long-distance gittin used to be done, through the mail. The beis din in the wife’s city would write to the beis din where the husband was, sending them an example of how a get is written in their city (because it must be written according to the minhagim of where it’s given, not those of where it’s written). The receiving beis din would persuade the husband to make them shlichim to write and send the get, they would write it according to the example they were sent, and put it in the mail to the receiving beis din, who would go with eidim and deliver it to the wife.
ujm, an agunah is a wife who is not free to marry another man because the husband will not give a gett. That might be because he disappeared, or or might be because he is a sick lowlife who gets pleasure from knowing his wife is stuck with him.
I’m guessing you aren’t a woman or an agunah. If you were either/both, you would have sympathy for these poor women who can’t move on and find happiness with another husband. By all means, nitpick. I guess you have to do something during Corona.
The Rabbanut in Israel politicizes every aguna case to win points with the israeli feminists. Most people dont know how powerful the feminist movement is in Israel and how it influences decisions made in their courts. It just happens to be that there are Rishonim who hold that if a man is already in prison for another matter, and you notify him that the giving of a get will SHORTEN his sentence, then the get is not considered “Meusa”. In this case I dont believe he was offered such a deal, maybe even the opposite was true.
Milhouse, if an Israeli soldier is c”v captured by enemies and is likely to be a POW for a long time, is he obligated to give a Get?
hml, a husband is not required to give a get just because his wife wants one. A wife who can’t marry another man because her husband won’t give her a get is a MARRIED WOMAN. There’s no reason she should be able to marry anyone else. She already has a husband, and is not entitled to exchange him like an unwanted Xmas gift. Only in very limited circumstances does the gemara authorize a beis din to order a husband to give a get, and he then has an obligation to obey the beis din.
An aguna is someone who husband is MISSING, and CAN’T give her a get, not one who just doesn’t want to. In this case the husband is stuck in a Moroccan prison, and until now was simply UNABLE to free his wife. Now Baruch Hashem he was given the opportunity to do so, and he took it.