A former Silver Spring woman who was a central figure in the ongoing
efforts to reform how the Orthodox community deals with men who refuse
to grant their wives a Jewish divorce has remarried.
Tamar Epstein married Adam Paul Fleischer on Sept. 24, in a ceremony in Memphis, Tenn....
Because they are still married in the eyes of Jewish law until they receive a get, such women are known as “chained” women, or agunot
in Hebrew. With several religious authorities viewing a husband’s
refusal to grant the document as tantamount to spousal abuse, Friedman
had been banned from communal activities in several locales, including
in the Washington area, pending the Silver Spring man’s granting of a
get....
The process by which Epstein was allowed to remarry has come under
scrutiny, according to several sources. At issue is whether her marriage
to Friedman was satisfactorily annulled....
Several people told Washington Jewish Week that Tamar was told
she was a free woman by a Philadelphia rabbi who declared that Friedman
had severe mental issues that existed prior to the couple’s marriage,
including paranoia and obsessive compulsive disorder, and that had she
known of these conditions, she would not have married him. Therefore,
halachically she could move on with her life, the rabbi declared....
Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, vice president of the Rabbinical Court in Israel, wrote a blog post in protest of Epstein’s remarriage.
A decision by some rabbis that the Epstein-Friedman marriage was over
even though Epstein “had lived with her first husband for an extended
period of time and she had borne a daughter from him,” is not the way it
works, he said.
“I saw the [ruling] that ‘freed’ her. I hate to say this, but the
[ruling] is total nonsense. Taking the approach of this [ruling], it is
possible to destroy the whole framework of halachic marriage,” he wrote. “Such an approach is destructive to Judaism and uproots the basic laws governing Jewish marriage.”
According to Sternbuch, Epstein is still married to Friedman “in every respect.”...
[Rabbi] Kranz, who believes Epstein must receive a Jewish divorce before she can
go on with her life, called the matter “a tragedy, a really big
tragedy.”
And we are all silent. Rav Shterbuch said to demonstrate this big chilul hashem all we do is comment on the blog. It is incumbent on all of us to protest this terrible chilul hashem.
ReplyDeleteLet's go to philly yeshiva, and make a huge tumul let Sam kam see that this will haunt him for the rest of his life
ReplyDeleteNow this calls for CitiField, We the people With Rabonim neeman laH' ultoroso, of Mi LaHAshem elay. Selling out Torah for Money? Phooey!
ReplyDeleteI agree and ready to protest however Sam is not scared nor worried he is a reckless and dangerous person and fears no one including G-D. I wonder at this point if anyone in Philly does. I know of a new case of a Philly Talmud that decided to get divorced he himself said my Rebbes in Philly told me to go to court and not Beth Din.
ReplyDeleteRaP only a person who is totally clueless about what is actually go on could write this.
ReplyDeleteAll you are doing is darshaning from the pictures. It is like determing the workings of a high tech manufactuing plant by observing the smoke coming out of the chimineys. In short it is a lot of wishful thinking but has nothing to do with reality.
I am NOT making an analogy between Stalinism and the Agudah. I am just using the latter as an example. Fortunately, Soviet archives preserve numerous before-and-after photos of Stalin celebrating with comrades that he later executed. In the ‘after’ pictures the murdered comrades are ‘removed’ from the photo. The Agudah will not need to alter these wedding photos, for they will be thrown out and forgotten before RSK’s disappearing act from the Moetzes.
ReplyDeleteIs this the sequel to your novel?
ReplyDeleteDon't blame me, blame the Yated, they are not reporting what you are reporting! So all they provide is pictures of happy Kaminetskys at Simchas and the Aguda convention adulated by the masses! It's a sort of parody, in the spirit of "many a truth is spoken in jest"! An example of "Kremlin watching" when all the Frum public sees is what's in the Yated and they do not read up the details on your blog. At any rate, all those Gedolim, Roshei Yeshiva and Poskim seem very happy with the Kaminetskys, like being in two deifferent disonent realities, unlike you and Rav Shternbuch that is fuming at them, I have long stated I agree that the Kaminetsky's made a big mistake in helping Tamar with her Heter, but their is the other reality that the Kaminetskys are hugely popular in the American Frum world, so it's like pointing out the faults of a Rock Star, and that is what you are up against. So while Tamar is expendable, less than a pawn, the Kaminetskys, like the Reichmans are "too big to fall" and will make hay even on the way down and in the end come out on top, while the few objectors will still remain outsiders to the grandiose Aguda world!
ReplyDeleteAs you should know by now, no novel could exceed what is going on by now. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction!
ReplyDeleteMore press coverage:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jta.org/2015/11/30/news-opinion/united-states/ex-maryland-woman-at-center-of-jewish-divorce-controversy-remarries-without-get
http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/325671/chained-wife-remarries-without-orthodox-divorce/
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.689401
Unless we hear differently from Jeremy Stern it safe to assume that ORA and RHS support the Heter. We know that Stern isn't shy and RHS already got involved in this case supporting the Kamenetskys. If they are against it as some here claim they should issue a statement as such - without such a statement we can only go by what they have last said.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree! Especially since RHS made it very clear that we cannot be meharer after RSK senior.
ReplyDeleteRe: RHS - What he last said? He never said anything about this heter. And his letter about RSK stipulated that you can rely on RSK unless "yisbarer lehedya shetaa". RSK denies involvement, so there's no reason to think RHS would support something that RSK denies supporting. And even if you thnnk RSK does support the heter, it's clear here that this psak was a mistake (whether or not RSK was actually involved) so there's no reason to think that RHS supports it.
ReplyDeleteYou and ehud must be good buddies - because he is obssessed with his idiot fantasy that somehow RHS is involved with this heter, and you seem to share his overactive imagination.
Let him come out and say so. He was all to quick to use ORA to hold public demonstrations even though as the Baltimore Bais Din has clearly said there was no obligation to give a Get. Doesn't he at least owe a public apology?
ReplyDeleteAnother dishonest fool.
ReplyDeleteWhy should he come out and say so? He had nothing to do with it, and there's no rational reason for any honest person to think he had nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteso he should make a statement about this to placate you and your dishonest idiot friends?
Because RHS openly supported the Kamenetskys when they acted shal khalacha till now so it is safe to assume nothing has changed if we haven't heard from him since.
ReplyDeleteHe gave permission for his ORA thugs to go after Aharon when he had no obligation to give a Get as per the Baltimore Bais Din. He also signed onto the Seruv issued by the Ottisville Bais Din. If you read the court testimony (from the Mendel Epstein trial) posted on this site you'd see that the "seruv" was nothing more than a negotiated deal between Wolmark and Goldfein (Tamar's lawyer).
So whose the idiot now?
Another dishonest fool, as per RaP's usual incisive assessment.
ReplyDeletelol Quite incisive of you! You're quite deep. lol