Saturday, March 17, 2012

Solution for aguna - annulment of marriage?


During the panel discussion at Spertus, a Jewish educational center near Grant Park in Chicago, Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, who is featured in “Women Unchained,” mentioned one possible hope for chained wives: an annulment. 

If a marriage began under false pretenses, Rabbi Schwartz said in a telephone interview, it can be considered never to have taken place. Such a case might involve a spouse’s failure to disclose homosexual tendencies, an abusive streak or a gambling addiction. 

“If he had this addiction,” Rabbi Schwartz said this week, “and he had covered it up, and once they get married, he goes through his money, his wife’s money, he cleans out her accounts, he’s gambling it away, he goes to the casinos, and back and forth — that’s a deception.” 

Rabbi Schwartz cautioned that for an annulment to occur, a spouse’s flaw must have been present but hidden before the marriage. In the end, the prenuptial agreement matters because a rabbi can do only so much. 

“I can’t break the law,” Rabbi Schwartz said — although others sometimes do. He said he had recently met a Russian Jewish immigrant from a “semi-Hasidic” community. “I was talking in his presence about the problem of the chained women,” the rabbi said, “and he said in Yiddish, ‘What’s the problem? We don’t have a problem! We beat them up.’ ”

11 comments :

  1. thanks for the distortion of halochoh george scwartz.

    by going to secular court, and kal ve'chomer secular court in the US, i cannot think of a more abusive type of behavior than women perpetrating this type of behavior.

    so dear george, you are proposing that virtually every marriage in the US which turns sour should not require a get,because the woman goes to arko'oys and abuses her husband there.

    great logic. only problem dear george is that besides for the fact that there is zero basis in halocho for this, since according to reb moshe, the duped party has to leave the marriage within 30 days for this to apply,there is also a principle of ain ha'choteh nischor, so why should the woman who has abused her husband in arko'oys be entitled to a get?

    get real dear george. you are not orthodox but reform even if you duped reb aharon kotler to write a haskomo or so you claim.

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  2. R o yosef annulls marriages whosale , look at י יע אמר vol 8,9.

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  3. Don't see anything unusual there - in vol 9 #38 he discusses a case where he seems to be basing himself on Rav Moshe Feinstein. Not sure what you mean by "anulls mariages whosale"

    You might want to look through Rabbi Bleich's review article available here. Didn't seen any reference to Rav Ovadia Yosef there.

    http://www.edah.org/backend/coldfusion/search/document.cfm?title=%27Kiddushei%20Taut%27&hyperlink=bleich21.html&type=Document&category=Contemporary%20Jewish%20and%20Halakhic%20Issues&authortitle=Rabbi&firstname=J%20David&lastname=Bleich&pubsource=Tradition%2C%2033%3A1&authorid=430

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  4. Why is going to arkayos more abusive than a husband that is emotionally and physically abusive to his wife?. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard ! The husband can give a get and get a divorce and be over it . A abused wife will usually remain suffering in her in marriage which drains the life and spirit out her, and thats by secular people who dont need a get.
    Stan are you someone who abuses your wifes?

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  5. avf are you meshueh? by going to arko'oys and using them to stop the father seeing the children the mother is abusing the father and the children. i am glad to see how objective you are. there are plenty of women who are emotionally abusing their husbands before seperation and using the court system for years to prevent the men from m oving on with their lives. you obviously do not know what you are talking about.

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  6. rabbi bleich is not part of GetORA and ius very against the NY Get Law

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  7. I commented previously that Gedaliah Schwartz told a couple who came for a GET to leave without one because he annulled the marriage based upon mekach toose. I asked him what kind of mekach toose and he said there was no biah. I asked him how he knew there was no biah and I asked him where h e heard such things and he had no good answers. The reality is that YU was always divided between Rav Soloveitchik who was a Brisker when it came to Gittin and halacha, and Rackman who controlled the money and wanted to change Gittin law. His daughter told me that her agunah organization had as its goal not just to help agunoah but to change halacha. At this po;int, YU is controlled by the radical left, and their goal is to do away with barriers in Gittin. Hence Schwartz annuls and Shechter publicly humiliates the husband in defiance of the Chazon Ish, Shach, Rav Yosef Karo, Radvaz and Rashbo. Both of them, Schwartz and Shechter, are paid by the Rackman money, and YU is becoming conservaitve not orthodox. Nobody should rely on a divorce or any such thing done by the new YU rabbis who are not Orthodox. Rabbi Elyashev told me that any Beth Din that does these kind of changes to help Agunoth that he takes away from them the authority of a Beth Din.

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  8. Well, Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn just lost all credibility in my eyes.

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  9. Anyone who thinks Rav Schachter is on Team Rackman has no idea what is going on in YU. YU is far more right wing today than ever.

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  10. James and JK please explain Ivanka's conversion by Shclachter.

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  11. some might find this of interest - since the same arguments are being advanced by the same people

    http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2010/07/bais-din.html

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