After many months of fighting for a Get, a man who worked for Egged Bus Cooperative in Israel was fired and finally gave his ex-wife the Jewish divorce.
Attorney and rabbinical court advocate Tehila Cohen of Yad La’isha, who works with Ohr Torah Stone (OTS), represented the wife, Ilana, in this case.
OTS is the modern Orthodox network advocating for women wrapped in the agunah, a halakhic term for a woman who is “chained” to marriage- crisis.
Over the span of 10 months, the husband, whose name has not been disclosed, has refused to allow a Get. When he was ordered by the court to grant Ilana a Get, he refused again saying he would only grant her a divorce if she waived her share of their joint property.
Cohen realized in February 2019 the only way the husband would grant Ilana the Jewish divorce was if he lost his job, so she requested that the rabbinical court utilize a law that allows a man refusing to grant his wife a Get be denied employment at any public agency.
Ilana’s husband worked for Egged Bus Cooperative and, because it’s subsidized by the state of Israel, she said it qualified as a public agency for this purpose.
Egged terminated the husband and, after failing to appear at the rabbinical court hearing in Jerusalem April 1, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
On April 2, after the husband was found and detained, he was brought before the rabbinical court and agreed to give his wife a Get.
“I can’t put my excitement in words. I’ve been emancipated, thanks to Yad La’isha, and today, I’m a free woman,” Ilana said in a statement. “Without this support, I don’t know if I would have ever been free. You saved me from the life I was living, and thanks to you, I’m leaving this place with the belief that God will be with me.”
Yad La’isha: the Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center and Hotline, part of the Ohr Torah Stone network, is the world’s largest organization dedicated to freeing and assisting agunot. Every year, Yad La’isha represents roughly 150 women in the Israeli rabbinical courts, also providing private investigators where necessary as well as social workers and personal coaches who empower the women while they await their freedom.
“Ilana is an impressive woman,” Cohen said in a statement. “After all she has endured, she is now getting her life back. We wish her and her son Chaim productive and happy lives.”
