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Two agunot were recently unchained by graduates of the Monica Dennis Goldberg School for Women Advocates working in the Yad L’isha Legal Aid Center and Hotline. Two women who are as different as night and day: 46-year-old R.Z., a Haredi mother of 12, and 30-year-old O.A., a secular woman with no children.

But despite their different backgrounds and outlooks on life, R.Z. and O.A. shared a common problem and a common goal: both were bonded in marriage to abusive husbands, and both turned to Yad L’isha in a desperate bid for freedom.

A Living Hell

R.Z. married in 1980. She and her husband D lived a strictly ultra-Orthodox lifestyle and children came along in quick succession. All along, D was verbally and physically abusive to his wife and to his children. “Shabbat afternoons were the worst,” recalls R. “The day of the week that is meant to be peaceful and serene was instead a living hell. D would lose his temper and hit the children for even the slightest infractions. He said they played too noisily and disturbed his sleep.”

An unemployed elementary school educator, D relied on R to support the family as best she could on her math-teacher salary. He held tightly to the family purse strings, refusing to give the children money, even for transportation to and from school. D also suffered from attacks of paranoia, regularly accusing R of outlandish plots; for a long period of time, for instance, he alleged that she was urinating in his food and forced his children to taste from his plate before he would agree to eat.

The violence worsened while R was pregnant with the couple’s tenth child. She registered complaints with the police and prayed that things would work out. Finally, when their youngest child was diagnosed as suffering from a mental challenge and a variety of physical ailments, R realized it wasn’t going to get better. She left her husband in their seven-room home and moved with her 12 children into a tiny apartment that she was able to rent with the assistance of charitable organizations.

Compassion and Conviction

Newly- freed R.Z. expressing appreciation to Yad L’isha advocate Vardit Rosenblum (r)

R turned to a legal aid organization for help; the appointed lawyer applied for a legal injunction against her husband but didn’t follow through. “I felt that because he wasn’t representing me privately, he didn’t really care about me,” says R. “My case was just one in an overflowing stack of papers on his desk.” One day, R was listening to the radio and she heard a woman advocate from Yad L’isha discussing the rights of women being denied a get. “There was such compassion in her voice and conviction in her tone,” she recalls. “I felt that the woman on the radio could move mountains, and that she would do anything in her power to set me free.” R’s intuition was right on target; Yad L’isha advocate Osnat Sharon took on her case and immediately began setting the wheels of justice into motion.

“There were snags along the way,” explains R. “Just getting my husband to show up in court was a challenge. Then he tried to get me to relinquish the kids rights to child support, but Osnat steadfastly refused to succumb.” Faced with Osnat’s formidable offense, D finally realized he had no choice but to grant R her long-awaited freedom.

“Some people see a locked door and turn on their heels without even trying the knob,” says R. “But other, rarer types of people are willing to approach even a locked door with faith and optimism. That’s what Yad L’isha did for me: the key to my chains had been lost, but instead of giving up, they fashioned a new one.”

“I Had to Escape”

Whereas R had been tied to D for a total of 29 years, O.A. realized just one year after her 2007 marriage that she had to escape. “It took some time for the penny to drop,” she admits.“ But after a few months of living together, it became apparent that my husband was mentally ill, and that he wasn’t taking his medications. He would go out at night, then come home in a drunken rage. He would accuse me of stealing money from him, he followed me to work. His outbursts were unpredictable and terrifying.”

O turned to Yad L’isha, having heard about the legal aid center from a friend. “As a secular woman, I was worried about going through the rabbinical courts, talking to a panel of rabbis, even being represented by a religious woman,” she says. “But from the minute I opened a file there I saw that the advocates’ knowledge, professionalism and true empathy knew no bounds. I knew I was in good hands.”

An Uphill Battle

Vardit Rosenblum of Yad L’isha represented O. “Her husband didn’t show up at hearings, didn’t leave an address with the rabbinical courts and didn’t respond to summons. It took a year just to convince the court to issue a ruling, and even then it was a ’recommendation’ that she receive her get, not an obligation,” relates Vardit. Undeterred, she filed an appeal in the Supreme Rabbinical Court, but when the judges learned that O’s husband was willing to grant a divorce in exchange for 75,000 NIS, they returned the case to the district court.

Advocate Osnat Sharon (l) meets with a new client

“The offer was very tempting,” explains O. “I’m 30, I wanted to just get the whole thing over with and embark on a new life, maybe find love, have children. But Vardit was infuriated! She refused to allow me to succumb to unadulterated bribery. In the end we won the case on purely legal grounds, but had she not stood firm in the face of the extortion, I would have taken the offer and suffered financial debt forever.

Free at Last

“I’m in awe of Vardit and the women advocates of Yad L’isha,” says O. “The breadth of their legal knowledge, their strength and their motivation are inspirational. All the while they represented me from a legal perspective, but at the same time they found the time and energy to offer me comfort, to keep me strong.”  R agrees: “I remember entire conversations I had with Osnat where she literally propped me up, lifted my spirits and gave me hope. If it weren’t for Yad L’isha, I would still be trapped today.”

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