Jeanette Friedman

My 40th anniversary written on Xmas Day 2006

Jan 14

Jeanette FriedmanUncategorized, agunot/chained women, domestic violence 1 Comment

Today is the 40th anniversary of the day that I learned that when a woman steps under the chuppah, she takes her life and the lives of her children in her hands, and does so without informed consent or any form of real protection.
Today is the 40th anniversary of the day my life changed dramatically.
Today is the 40th anniversary of the day I married a man who beat me up and turned me into an agunah.

So today, indulge me, and read on.

> However, as the building companies started selling apts. to other groups, they have
> been trying to FORCE (emphasis mine, jf) the buses to be segretated.

Allow me to use some exegetical thinking here. It may be a stretch but – he says Charedim are FORCING the issues, some of them with the use of violence against women in public, so let’s talk a little bit about the use of force to create change–war is supposed to create peace–isn’t it?

Anyway, let’s give this a shot.

THE USE OF FORCE. let’s see what the Torah and Talmud say about using force.I can give you chapter and verse on this beginning with Devorim 20, Sotah 8, Sotah 42, etc.Rambam, hilchos melachim, peace above all. PEACE.

Last I heard, whether it’s real war, when you are dealing with your enemies first you must try to make peace, then you must exempt anyone who ever committed an aveyrah from going to war (r’ jose). Then when you lay a siege, you leave one side of the city open, and you aren’t allowed to chop down trees, rape or pillage, loot or anything else.

SO unless it’s self defense, forget it. No violence is allowed to force your enemies to do what you want.

Now then, based on how you are supposed to treat your ENEMIES with respect and practically pacifism, explain how you can force a woman, a fellow Jew, who is minding her own business in a public environment to go to the back of the bus or you will beat her and you will spit in her face

Why is it a woman’s obligation to be a trained warrior to face these people? Why does she have to go thru the basic training of a soldier in a conventional war to deal with people who don’t want to look at her or have her sit on a public bus? Chihal, why does Shoni Thon get advice to buy a can of mace, instead of decent Jewish men and Jewish society and the Jewish community dealing with the violent, coercive behavior that amounts to a state of war against women? (Chihal says until that happens she needs to protect herself NOW–ok)

Where is the exegesis on that? Where is the halacha? Other than Russell Hendel, who tries valiantly, where are you all to stop this violence halachically and force people to pay the price via derech eretz? This behavior is criminal behavior by anyone’s standards. (OTOH, Russell’s post on the halachic penalty of kicking/grabbing is enlightening indeed. So considering the situation on the bus, killing her on the spot for kicking would have been ok?)

The day the Kolko story broke I spoke to a Charedi friend from Brooklyn who said to me, “I warned my boys never to go near him 30 years ago.” Everybody knows–and nobody knows. No one does anything, and then Matisyahu Solomon, at the Agudah Convention, in the name of Halacha, blames the bloggers, and essentially says sweep it under the rug for the sake of the respect of the rabbanim.

If the rabbanim want respect, let them earn it. Starting with R’ Eliashiv, who canceled the agunah conference, does not speak out against the violence against women and children, sexually or otherwise. Not one word. Ever. Reb David Feinstein doesn’t speak about Shalom Bayis from the pulpit. Why not? His father was a pioneer in these issues and sent me to civil court to get my get. His father made the Silver Get Law. What gives here? The get ultimately cost almost half a mil. Where normal people come from that’s the crime of extortion. Criminal behavior.

Why is this criminal and not civil? If a woman is pious and takes Judaism seriously, her life is ruined if she can never remarry. She IS chained to a dead future. Because of the “separation” of church and state in a state where she DOES have the right to a divorce, a right guaranteed to every human being on the planet, even in the UN charter, she does not have that right. If her husband says, “I can get married again, you never will unless you give me what I want,” that’s extortion. “Give me what I want or you will suffer.” That’s criminal behavior.

So again, all of these things, the beating of the woman on the bus or Blimi Zitrenbaum in Monsey and any other child or woman, Kolko’s behavior, what the NK did, and the threats against Shani Thon, are CRIMES. CRIMES that in any other society, except some Islamic ones, would be punished in courts of law where people would pay fines, go to jail or suffer some consequence, not the least of which is a public shaming. At least that way everyone knows that these people committed evil against innocent people and shun them. In the real world, if you do the Crime you do the Time (not always, but at least THEY try. WE don’t even bother!)

The silence from R’ Eliashiv and others, and only prove my points. Frank Silberman’s post is a clear indication of why we are in the state we are in. His attitude perfectly reflects why it is that no gives a hoot or a holler about the status of women. This can be summed up this way: “I don’t read it, I don’t see it, I don’t know it, I don’t want to know it, therefore the problem doesn’t exist and I don’t have anything to do with it–even if it does exist–so leave me alone.”

A careful reading of Eeyov (Job) makes it very, very clear that if we are good people who understand what our place is in the world, then we must work to make society and humanity better than it is. This is our obligation to and understanding of Hashem. This is burdensome and can cause suffering among the righteous, but it brings us closer to Hashem, unlike the friends and the evil ones, who may be rewarded in this life with sleekness and easy words that fall from their lips as if they mean something. But empty words are just that empty and don’t bring us closer to Hashem.

We all have to face the fact that if we aren’t working toward stopping this–and it is 30% across the board, in all societies and in all religions, and you can go online and gets the stats all over the place–we aren’t really acting the way any Jew of any denomination is required to act, ethically and halachically, since what is involved here is clearly pikuach nefesh–literally and figuratively.

And everyone knows the halacha on that.

So why is it not being applied?