Elana Sztokman

You can learn an incredible amount about different people from language. There are, for example, 27 words for “moustache” in Albanian – including a word for what English-speakers would call “no moustache.” It seems that in Albania, moustaches are pretty important. Similarly, the Inuit are famous for having 30 words for snow – clearly they see things in the snow that most of us don’t.

Unique linguistic forms abound, and provide intriguing insights into cultures. According to Adam Jacot de Boinod, author of 'The Meaning of Tingo', the Khakas people of Siberia have a word for the ring you put in the nose of a calf in order to stop it suckling its mother (“oorxax”); Indonesian has a word for flicking someone with the middle finger on the ear (“nylentik”); Hawaiian has a word for scratching your head in order to remember something forgotten (“pana po’o”); Pascuense in Easter Island has a word for a slight inflammation of the throat caused by screaming too much (“ngaobera”); Persian has a word for looking beautiful after having a disease (“mahj”); and Brazilian Portuguese has a word for the practice of putting a live cricket into a box of newly faked documents, until the insect's excrement makes the paper look convincingly old (“grigalem”).

So what’s Hebrew’s claim to fame?

I would have liked to find a word, perhaps, for that hand gesture of squeezing thumb and middle finger in order to indicate to the viewer, “wait.” But no, we Jews are not quite that lucky. Instead, what distinguishes our culture is that ours is the only language in the world that has the word “agunah.”

An agunah is a woman indefinitely stuck in an unwanted marriage, in which the husband is gone but she is still considered married. It is the word for a woman’s perpetual state of limbo, in which she is chained to a man who has complete freedom to move, marry, produce offspring and live a normal life. The cruelty reflected in a society that enables even one agunah to exist — and accepts this situation as a reality to such an extent that it gives her a name — should bring us all enormous shame.

International Agunah Day is marked on Ta’anit Esther, which this year falls on Thursday February 25. I think it’s fitting but tragic to combine the Esther story with the agunah story. After all, according to the traditional story, Esther was trapped in an unwanted marriage as well, to King Ahasverosh, a man known for murdering disobedient wives and around whom Esther had to completely disguise her identity. In this marriage, Esther sacrificed her own freedom, her own dreams, and her own life, presumably for the sake of the Jewish people — although it takes several chapters of the book and an indeterminate number of years for a threat to surface. I hate to say this but in a way, it’s a good thing Haman came along and gave her enslavement a greater purpose. If not, her sacrifice would have been for naught.

READ THE REST ON THE FORWARD SISTERHOOD

Ever since Att. Gitit Nachliel’s legal precedent in which the parents of a recalcitrant husband were forced to pay child support as grandparents, Mavoi Satum has been inundated with requests for similar lawsuits. Mavoi Satum, and mesorevet get “L”, have been celebrating a major victory following the ruling of the Jerusalem Family Court (Judge P. Marcus) in which the parents of the recalcitrant husband were forced to pay for child support of their grandchildren. Mavoi Satum Legal Aid Director Att. Gitit Nachliel won this victory based on information that became available about the parents conspiring to hide the whereabouts of their son and facilitate his recalcitrance. “L” has been an agunah for four years, and her husband left the country when she was pregnant with their youngest child. For more information about this and other Mavoi Satum’s legal precedents, contact Gitit Nachliel. Read the rest of this entry →

The Center for Women's Justice, under the leadership of Susan Weiss, has released a series of YouTube videos that tell shocking stories of agunot, women struggling to attain independence from controlling husbands and find themselves stuck in the intransigent rabbinical courts. Click here to watch. Savta Bikorta Read the rest of this entry →

I’m turning forty next week, and I want to celebrate. I’m not talking about a Madonna-style birthday celebration of pretending I’m still 22, or an Oprah-style event involving giving away cars (although perhaps if I could actually do either, I might consider it). I’m thinking more along the lines of a celebration of life, of joy, of the freedom that comes with a certain stage of adulthood.

Forty is a big deal. Every major biblical transition was represented by forty – forty years in the desert, forty days on the mountain, forty days of the flood, forty years of peace when Deborah became judge (after Yael took out Sisera). In short, forty is birth, transition, or transformation. Forty weeks of gestation. According to the Kabala, forty steps in the creation of the world – ten utterances of God, and four steps of creation each time. Forty. According to the late Aryeh Kaplan, forty is the “mem”, the letter of “mayim”, waters, which represents the fluidity of life. Forty, or “mayim”, is about my own rebirth. I can’t wait.

Forty is freedom. It’s about relinquishing all kinds of anxieties and fears and a nagging need to please. It’s about letting myself dance and sing and run and leap, about allowing myself to be who I am, to speak freely and write freely and not be too afraid that someone won’t like what I have to say. I’ve learned that someone will always disagree or disapprove, so I might as well be true to myself, so at least one person will always be satisfied.

Forty is about owning myself. Like the way the amazing George Michael defines it: “I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me. Yeah, yeah!” It’s about letting go of other people’s voices in my head and listening closely to my own. I believe that quiet inner voice that we all have to be the voice of God that we were all granted as part of our tzelem elokim. It’s so often encumbered by external prattle, the way the poet Mary Oliver writes in her glorious poem, “The Journey”: “’ "Mend my life!"/ each voice cried/ But you didn't stop/ You knew what you had to do.”.....

So, to mark my newfound freedom of forty and all its accompanying Zen-Torah wisdom, I invite you to help me celebrate my birthday by helping other women who have not yet achieved freedom. I am talking of course about agunot and mesoravot get, women inextricably chained in unwanted marriages who want nothing else than the freedom I described here. If you want to help me celebrate, please give a gift of $40 to Mavoi Satum helping agunot and mesoravot get. Together, we’ll spread the joy, and strive to bring about freedom for all.

And thanks for celebrating with me!

Read the rest on the Forward Sisterhood

Last week I had the privilege of being on Nettie Feldman's internet radio program "Rusty Mike" to talk about the agunah problem in Israel. She invited Rabbi Eli Ben Dehan, head of the Jerusalem Beit Din, to talk about his solutions to the problem. His response, "You're making it up." That is how the Jerusalem Beit Din approaches the problem. Agunot, women's groups, legal advocates -- we are all hallucinating. It would be funny if there weren't so many real lives being ruined by this myopic callousness. Anyway, you can listen for yourself. Click here for the podcast. Read the rest of this entry →

“The only organization that can successfully bring onto one stage the head of the Knesset opposition and the head of the Knesset coalition is Mavoi Satum,” said Likud head MK Zeev Elkin at Mavoi Satum’s annual Leah Globe Memorial Evening. The event, held this past Monday night at Jerusalem’s Cinematheque, honored Hebrew University President Prof Menachem Ben Sasson, Yaakov Herzog Founding President Tova Ilan, and longtime volunteer Jeremy Berkovits, for their important contributions to the advancement of agunot. “The issue of agunot and mesoravot get crosses coalition and party boundaries,” Elkin continued, “and the Knesset needs to do more in the way of legislation about this issue.” MK Daliah Itzik congratulated Prof. Ben Sasson on his success in passing the Law of Division of Property in 2008, and said that “he was willing to take on his shoulders full responsibility for this issue, to the point of risking the fall of the government.” She added that Prof. Ben Sasson is “sorely missed” at the Knesset and that “we need more Ben Sassons in government.” MK Itzik also congratulated Mavoi Satum for lobbying diligence. Read the rest of this entry →

The Rabbinate has posted some new photos of recalcitrant husbands on the Beit Din Website. David Shem Tov of Jerusalem has disappeared and left his wife an agunah for four years. According to the Jerusalem Post, the court system's spokeswoman has contacted Israeli media in an attempt to track down David Shem-Tov. "It is not enough that I am a captive in my husband's hands. My situation is worse than a slave's. According to Halacha a slave can redeem himself. But I can't," Merav said. To share information, go to their website. Read the rest of this entry →

“Rachel” an ultra-Orthodox mother of 12 living in Jerusalem, got divorced this week. It’s cause for celebration for two reasons. First, this grants her much-needed freedom from her severely violent and erratic now-ex-husband, a man who viciously controlled, manipulated and abused her and her children during the marriage and separation. But the real jubilation is because the divorce process – receiving her get – took nine years. Nine years! That’s a marathon that deserves acknowledgment. Unfortunately, Rachel is not alone. Thousands of agunot and mesoravot get (women denied divorce) are stuck in limbo – sometimes for years or even decades – neither married nor divorced, waiting for the rabbinical court to come to their aid. READ THE REST ON THE FORWARD SISTERHOOD BLOG Read the rest of this entry →

Michal S., who has been waiting for her get since her husband disappeared, is finally receiving her freedom. She was recently notified that her husband was located in North America and gave a get by messenger to a local rabbi. She is now waiting for the get to be transferred to her in Israel. With God's help, Michal will be a free woman by Rosh Hashana! To find out more, go to the Mavoi Satum website or check out the Mavoi Satum Rosh Hashana newsletter. Read the rest of this entry →

Excited emails keep coming in from all over the world, "Did you see Michael Broyde's article on women rabbis?" And so despite my discomfort with this whole episode, I'm reposting this blog so people understand the whole picture before they get too excited. Rabbi Broyde took the time to write to me and insist that he absolutely, unequivocally, does NOT favor women rabbis, and that anyone who reads his article and comes to the conclusion that he DOES favor women rabbis would in no uncertain terms be mistaken. He also had some other choice commentary that I believe sheds light on the inner workings of the Orthodox establishment. Let's just say I'm not impressed. Read the rest of this entry →