Time to Give an Unconditional Get to the BDA and ORA - the case of Donny Novick

Baruch Hashem

Guest post by Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver

Let us discuss the current "agunah" case of Donny Novick and Sherri Essrog-Novick and the detrimental involvement of the BDA (the Beth Din of America) and ORA (the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot) in their dispute. I will argue that Sherri is not in fact an agunah because at no point did Donny refuse to give her a get. Rather, the wrongdoings of Sherri from both a halachic and human standpoint have delayed the get. Moreover, the BDA is culpable for miscarriage of justice and ORA is culpable for defamation. All are in violation of established Jewish law, and these travesties should move the Jewish community to ostracize these organizations.

ORA’s False Accusation of Get Refusal

On their Facebook page here, ORA posted an image (under the headline "Facts:"!) accusing Donny of refusing to give his wife a get for three years. On its face, this means that ORA claims to have solid proof that three years ago, Sherri went to beis din and requested a get, and that beis din instructed him to give one, yet Donny refused—out of misogynistic, vengeful, spiteful "recalcitrance".

It further states that the BDA placed on him a seiruv (issuance of contempt of court) for get refusal.

These are bold-faced lies. Donny did not refuse to give a get for three years or at all, nor did the BDA place him in seiruv for get refusal.

What are the facts?

Let’s look at the BDA’s letter supposedly issuing a seiruv for get refusal. A basic reading of the letter shows that that is simply not what it says. The relevant text from here:

…Daniel Novick has failed to appear in front of the Beth Din of America or an alternative beth din for the purpose of giving a Get or submitting to beth din adjudication of Sherri Novick’s request for a Get. Daniel Novick is thus deemed a mesarev lavo ledin, one who declines to appear in front of the Jewish courts according to Jewish law, and Sherri Novick is free to pursue any remedies permitted by secular law…

This letter is written in guarded language in comparison with other such letters. It was plainly issued not for get refusal itself but for failure to appear at a beis din. It did not recommend public pressure and punitive measures against Donny; it merely stated that his wife is not obligated to go to beis din and may use civil courts (we note that this dispensation is absurd, as the BDA was fully aware that Sherri was using civil courts without rabbinic permission long before this letter was composed; more on that below).

We wonder how ORA construed this letter as a green light for a public shaming campaign against Donny. In addition to the inherent sin of embarrassing a fellow Jew without sufficient warrant, such coercive actions without solid rabbinic approval cross the line into the grave issue of forcing a get without sufficient warrant according to Jewish law, which would invalidate any get given, rendering the offspring born from Sherri’s future unions illegitimate (mamzerim), G–d forbid (cf. Rashba 7:414, Radvaz 4:118, Bais Yosef Even Ha’Ezer 154, Chazon Ish Even Ha’Ezer 108:12).

Thus, ORA is guilty of making a false accusation against Donny.

It is not enough to state the superficial fact that a get was not given for three years. "Context is everything". Was Donny refusing to give a get or even refusing to cooperate with a beis din for three years, or at all? No.

The BDA’s Negligence

In reality, Donny's wife brought this case to be tried in two different batei din of her choosing, each of whose advice or ruling was not to her liking, until she took the case to secular court (in 2014) without rabbinic dispensation (a grave sin worthy of excommunication; see Gittin 88b, Shemos 21:1, Rashi and Ramban ibid., Mishneh Torah, Laws of Sanhedrin 26:7, Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 26:1).

This means that in fact, the delay in the delivery of the get was the fault not of Donny but of Sherri, making her the get refuser and him the agun, the husband "chained" in a marriage against his will. If anyone should be the subject of a seiruv, it would be Sherri.

Then while the case was still in civil court, Sherri brought it back before the beis din—two separate batei din, in fact—yet once she learned that both those batei din require both spouses to sign a shtar chiyuvim, a legally binding contract requiring that matters of custody be settled by those respective batei din, she refused. Why would she do that? After all, she was already getting full custody using civil court and on her way to winning big bucks on a final settlement.

Yet Sherri did not have everything she wanted—she still needed a get. So she needed a beis din that would overlook her sinful use of civil courts and allow and therefore enable her to keep the custody and financial settlement cases there, yet push for and preside over the get at the same time. So she went shopping still further until she found a "beis din" that would ignore her halachic wrongdoings and thereby essentially aid and abet them—the BDA. Indeed, they agreed to push for a get without demanding that Sherri first take the custody dispute out of civil court and have them adjudicate it. Nor did they insist on even trying to mediate or negotiate the custody issue, as any decent rabbi involved in a divorce case would have required. 

While in email contact with the BDA, Donny told them (and he has the email trail to prove it, which he is willing to share upon request) that he had brought his case before other batei din (and he included their names and phone numbers in those emails), and was then later taken to court by her without rabbinic permission. He also stated that he was willing to give a get along with the civil divorce, even if the ruling of the divorce court would not be in his favor.

The BDA sent email summonses to Donny, and although he apologized and explained that he could not appear at those dates due to work restraints, they refused to work with his schedule and issued a seiruv against him for his failure to appear, along with giving permission to his wife to sue him in civil courts (knowing full well that she was doing so already regardless, without rabbinic permission). The seiruv was enough for ORA to go public and launch yet another shameful social media shaming campaign, this time against Donny.

The blame here lies with ORA:

·     *  for their zeal in going beyond the words of the BDA’s letter, which did not call for a public shaming campaign 

·        * for waging a public shaming campaign against a fellow Jew without sufficient warrant, committing the sin of shaming a fellow Jew 

 ·     * for willfully disregarding the fact (that Donny communicated to them directly when they contacted him) that Donny had been involved with several other batei din with which he had fully cooperated, and instead libeling him as a "get refuser" 

·       *  for creating halachically unwarranted communal pressure that could potentially result in a coerced and therefore invalid get (cf. Rashba 7:414, Radvaz 4:118, Bais Yosef Even Ha’Ezer 154, Chazon Ish Even Ha’Ezer 108:12)

But blame also lies with the BDA itself:

·              *   for taking up Sherri's request for a get in the first place, despite the fact that she was suing in civil court, in which case Jewish law rules that the Defendant in civil court need not respond to a summons to appear before the beis din, nor may the beis din impose a seiruv on the Defendant (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 26:1)  

·       *     for ignoring Donny’s requests to delay the meeting with the BDA to a later date so it could fit in to his work schedule 

·     *      for publicizing a letter falsely accusing Donny of neglecting to come before beis din (he was willing to, just not at that date) when in reality it was Sherri who was guilty of that very wrongdoing by abandoning the earlier batei din that she herself chose—which had the effect of falsely implying that he is a get refuser 

·      *       for failing to issue any statement at all holding Sherri accountable for committing the grave sin of using civil courts (even alongside the seiruv against Donny, which would at least have demonstrated a modicum of balance) and calling for her to return the custody and financial disputes to beis din immediately (especially considering the severity of her case against Donny—see following section) 

·      *     for issuing even such a limited seiruv knowing full well that ORA would use it as carte blanche to publicly pillory Donny, even though there was no halachic basis to do so

Financial Ruin upon Donny through the Civil Case

Bringing the case to civil court has brought great financial ruin upon Donny:

·         Donny has been paying alimony since their separation in 2013.

          Sherri's lawyer managed to require Donny to pay for Sherri's lawyer.

   ·         This case has left Donny hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

The legal conflict that Sherri initiated is the real reason that the get has been delayed for so long:

1. The conflict over custody. Even the conflict over temporary custody has drawn out interminably. Despite the fact that Donny has no history of poor parenting, Sherri has refused every offer toward a reasonable temporary custody agreement, resulting in his daughter only spending four Shabbosim with him since January. (Every month he is required to send a list of dates that he wants visitation with his daughter for Sherri to approve, only after they are reviewed and approved by her lawyer.) And who has been forced to pay for all these unnecessary, petty legal squabbles, and suffer the painful distance caused between parent and child? Donny.

2. The conflict over the final settlement. Why indeed is the court requiring Donny to pay so much money, if he is currently a medical resident earning very little? Because Sherri is now arguing in court (and the documentation is accessible on the public record) that Donny's wealth must be evaluated not on its own merits at present, but in context of his family and their wealth, and in context of his future earnings as a doctor—earnings he never earned and does not have. If she really would get her way and win a final settlement for support on that basis, Donny could well be rendered homeless. As it is, she collects 70% of his earnings. The gross unfairness, injustice, and greed in this lawsuit is self-evident.

Moreover, Sherri is suing for a settlement that would place Donny in a lifetime of debt and thus make it impossible for him to ever remarry, rendering Donny an agun. (And as far as ORA is concerned, their callous lack of concern for Donny's remarriage prospects due to Sherri's forbidden lawsuit clearly reveals their feminist, misandrist agenda and the phoniness of their pious concern for the "chained".)

Thus, Sherri is not only litigating custody in civil court, which is forbidden in itself (and a form of kidnapping, which is even worse than stealing property); she is litigating for a monetary award to which she is completely not entitled under Jewish law, and which thus constitutes extortion and robbery. This makes the BDA's and ORA's acceptance of Sherri's ongoing lawsuit against Donny all the more morally wrong and severe.

Conclusion

In summary, Donny is no monstrous "get refuser" (which is anyway not wrong or forbidden in itself—see here) and Sherri is no "agunah". On the contrary, Donny was the one obediently submitting to Jewish law, willing to accept the rulings of a beis din following the standard procedure of negotiating his settlement and presiding over the giving of the get, enabling him to move on with his life. Donny did not refuse to give a get or demand anything outside the norm and he fully cooperated with four other batei din of Sherri's choosing. Rather, it was Sherri who rejected their authority and went on to commit a series of acts that neutral bystanders, as well as the arbitrators of those batei din, found to be totally beyond the pale.

Although a detailed account is beyond the scope of this article, Donny is only the latest in a long line of Jewish men who have been the victims of such treatment. The public must realize that despite the apparent worthiness of their cause, both the BDA and ORA are morally corrupt institutions with a long, sordid history of persecuting and victimizing Jewish men: The BDA, for issuing unwarranted seiruvim; and ORA, for knowingly libeling Jewish husbands as malicious "get refusers" guilty of "domestic abuse" while knowingly covering up the crimes and lies of abusive wives, all in order to promote their misandrist, feminist agenda (and harming the legitimate cause of true agunim and agunos—those unable to remarry because of the truly malicious refusal of their spouses to accept or give a get).

It’s time for the Jewish community to give an unconditional get to the BDA and ORA—with recalcitrance.