Leading Designers and Celebrities Publicize the Plight of Agunot

One of 20 dresses designed to convey the anguish of the agunot

Israel's thousands of agunot, literally "chained women," who are refused a get or Jewish law divorce by their husbands, usually keep their chilling stories of abuse a private affair. But when NIF grantee ICAR (International Coalition for Agunot Rights) staged a recent celebrity fashion show, the personal stories of agunot made headlines in the country's gossip columns and mainstream media.

Twenty of Israel's top fashion designers paired up with an agunah to design a dress that embodied each woman's struggle. Pop singers, supermodels, actresses, and other Israeli celebrities modeled the dresses at a Tel Aviv fashion show in June attended by hundreds. The event also received a major grant directly from NIF.

One of 20 dresses designed to convey the anguish of the agunot

"One of our biggest successes is that the issue is in the public eye," said Robin Shames, director of ICAR, a coalition of 25 Israeli women's organizations spanning the religious spectrum from secular to Orthodox. "At one point you would say agunah, and people wouldn't know what you were talking about."

All Jewish couples in Israel must divorce through the Orthodox rabbinate's court system. According to Jewish law, a husband cannot be compelled to grant his wife a divorce and some men exploit this to make demands in exchange for the get. For many mesuravot get ('refused a get,' also commonly referred to as agunot), those demands amount to blackmail.

Israeli law allows the Rabbinate to pressure the husband through sanctions ranging in severity from revoking a passport to imprisonment. In practice, the rabbinical courts rarely pursue those sanctions.

Trapped in an unwanted marriage, agunot cannot remarry or establish a new family without any newly begotten children being considered mamzerim – bastards – according to Jewish law. In the desperate attempt to obtain a get, many women relinquish rights to property, child support, and sometimes even child custody.

ICAR, founded by NIF and SHATIL, works to eliminate the phenomenon of agunot through psychological counseling, legislative lobbying efforts and educational campaigns. For years, the organization has been lobbying for legislation that recently passed a first reading in the Knesset: a bill that would allow property to be divided between spouses without needing to wait for the husband to grant the official divorce, eliminating the financial issues that often fuel the prolonged battle for a get. 

Pnina Rabi’s Story

Pnina Rabi, 50, flips through an album of wedding photos in her modest apartment in Kiryat Gat. She stops at a portrait of her husband, Menashe, beaming under the chuppah.

But behind the groom's sweet disposition hides a man who has refused to grant his wife a divorce for 17 years. Before he fled the country in 1992, he told Pnina that he would not grant a get "until you reach an age when you cannot have children." He is thought to be living in an ultra-Orthodox community in New York.

Pnina Rabi has been waiting 17 years for a divorce

"I was beaten, spat on, cursed at," said Pnina. "The worst things you could ever imagine. When I became pregnant, he said, 'You took advantage of me." Three weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Pnina suffered a major stroke. Sprawled unconscious on the floor, she was neglected by her husband for ten hours before being taken to the hospital. Six months later, after continued beatings, she escaped.

To this day, Pnina has not received one shekel of child support from her husband. "The rabbinical court calls me a blackmailer because I want money. One time a rabbinical court judge told me, 'You know that women pay to receive a get!' But why should I pay? That is not written in the Torah," Pnina said.

Pnina's story inspired fashion designer Keren Naftali to design the "Embalming Dress," a skin-tight, flesh-colored dress with layers of creases. "I didn't cover her up with layers, with a head covering," said Naftali. "It is a naked, exposed dress. She screams, 'I am here, I am a woman."