Rabbi Mendel Epstein
Lakewood, NJ
Brooklyn, NY
During an undercover FBI special agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife whose husband was unwilling to consent to divorce, while a second agent posed as the wife's brother, the complaint said. On Aug. 7, 2013, both agents called Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark to present their case and tell him they were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain the divorce. Wolmark explained how he could coerce the divorce, but it would be expensive, the complaint said.
Rabbi Mendel Epstein told them the kidnapping would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the "tough guys" who would conduct the beating and obtain the forced get, the complaint said.
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Table of Contents
2013
Table of Contents
2013
- What Kind of Community Needs to Hear This (08/28/2013)
- United States District Court: District of New Jersey (10/10/2013)
- FBI: Kidnaping, Cattle Prods Used to Force Orthodox Jewish Men To Divorce Wives –– 2 Rabbis Among 4 Charged in FBI Sting (10/10/2013)
- 3 rabbis arrested in divorce scandal at Rockland yeshiva (10/10/2013)
- FBI raids Monsey yeshiva in divorce-gang probe (10/10/2013)
- FBI raids Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey (10/10/2013)
- Arrests made in N.J., N.Y. as FBI raids Rockland County temple (10/10/2013)
- Rabbis Accused in Plot to Kidnap, Torture Husbands to Pressure Divorces (10/10/2013)
- Rabbis accused of plot to torture man into granting divorce (10/10/2013)
- Rabbis Said to Use Torture, for Fee, to Force Divorce (10/10/2013)
- Various sects prominent in Rockland, NYC region (10/10/2013)
- NY Rabbis Arrested: Rabbis Wolmark And Epstein Tortured Husbands With Handcuffs, Karate For Jewish Divorces (10/10/2013)
- Brooklyn rabbi tortured Jewish husbands with cattle prod to force divorce: feds (10/10/2013)
- 2 rabbis, 2 others charged in Jewish divorce shakedown (10/10/2013)
- Rabbis 'beat me, stun-gunned my genitals' (10/11/2013)
- 2 rabbis, 8 ohers charged in N.J. kidnapping and torture plot to force divorce (10/11/2013)
- Attorney: Monsey rabbi tied to divorce gang could be released on bail by Friday (10/16/2013)
- Rabbis in divorce-gang sting could be out on bail soon (10/16/2013)
- Accused Kidnap Rabbi Known For 'Wild West' Rules (10/16/2013)
- Rabbis charged in Jewish divorce shakedown to be released on bail (10/16/2013)
- Bail set for Martin Wolmark and Mendel Epstein, rabbis accused of torturing Orthodox Jewish men into religious divorces (10/16/2013)
- Four more granted bail in religious divorce shakedown by rabbis (10/18/2013)
- Judge sets bail for Jewish scribe, 3 others in kidnapping-divorce case (10/22/2013)
2014
-
Two brothers Avrohom and Moshe Goldstein admit forcing Jewish men to divorce (03/11/2014)
- Ramapo divorce gang: 2 brothers admit violently forcing man into religious divorce (03/13/2014)
- The drama of Agunah Day (03/15/2014)
Also See:
- Case of Avrohom Goldstein
- Case of Jay Goldstein
- Case of Moshe Goldstein
- Case of Ariel Potash
- Case of Sholom Shuchat
- Case of Binyamin Stimler
- Case of Martin Wolmark
- Policies For inclusion on The Awareness Center's Sex Offender's Registry
- Listing Alleged and Convicted Sex Offenders
- The quasi-orthodox Jewish world compared to the "BITE" Model of Cult Mind Control (11/06/2013)
- Domestic Violence in Jewish Communities
What Kind of Community Needs to Hear This
Rabbis have to stop dismissing everything that comes from outside the Beis Medrash
By Rabbi Eliyahu Fink
Jewish Press - August 28, 2013
An interview with Rabbi Mendel Epstein has gone viral. The protagonist of the article is Rabbi Epstein, a man who has dedicated his life to helping women navigate the rough waters of Jewish divorce. He is a professional to’ein (Jewish for lawyer) and advocates for women. He has a lot of insight. He also carries a bias. We all do. There’s no crime in bias. But it’s important that we know what we are dealing with.
In terms of substance, I agree with a lot of what Rabbi Epstein says. Obviously. Who wouldn’t?
He comes off a bit paternalistic at times. He’s also working in a very male dominated social environment so some of what he says sounds uncomfortable to more modern ears. I think it’s clear that he is talking about a fairly insular Haredi community. Most of the modern orthodox or even centrist yeshiva type people I know are fully aware of these things and don’t need to be informed or even reminded to treat their wives respectfully.
Four items in his “Bill of Rights” for Orthodox Jewish wive are:
He also cites some very specious anecdotal evidence about divorce and infidelity that sound exaggerated. He basically tries to assert the “it might lead to mixed dancing” argument as fact.
But here is the real problem. What kind of society needs to be told these things? How is this all not patently obvious? What kind of world needs a rabbi to affirm these basic principles?
It’s not as if Rabbi Epstein is saying that there a few people who need to be reminded or scolded about these things. He seems to be saying that this Bill of Rights is necessary for our entire society. This makes me ill.
We tout our communities as safe havens from the dysfunction on the outside. But is it true? Is there dysfunction on the outside? Are we functioning better? These are very difficult claims to answer. Rabbi Epstein seems to be poking a hole in our armor. It seems that in some ways we need to look to the outside as our guide on how to behave. Ask any middle-class, educated, family orientated person about marriage and there is no doubt that they will echo Rabbi Epstein’s supposed bombshell.
But how does this happen? How is it that we are falling behind?
It’s possible that we have demonized the outside so much in our communities and educational systems that we passively reject whatever they espouse. We gloss over חכמה בגויים תאמין. We think that we have the answers and they don’t. Eventually this leads us to a place where we tune out the good ideas and advice from the outside and bad habits and poor social standards become set in our communities.
I don’t doubt that there are many people who need to hear this Bill of Rights. But I also don’t doubt that anyone normal would agree with them. So why does it need to be said? It has to be that we simply ignore these issues. Why are we ignoring them if the rest of modern society is addressing them? There is no satisfactory answer to this question.
One more thing. Rabbi Epstein places too much faith in the Beis Din system. I have never in my entire life heard of someone who had a positive Beis Din experience. It seems extremely unlikely that a woman’s best course of action is to go to a Beis Din that requires both parties to agree to a binding arbitration. The problems with our Beis Din system are well known and it’s a disservice to his audience that Rabbi Esptein recommends entering into this basically corrupt system. See: Restoring Credibility to the Beis Din System.
The article ends with a call for action and ideas for solutions. I think it’s pretty simple. Reinstitute חכמה בגויים תאמין. Start learning from the outside. Read secular books of marriage and intimacy. Pay attention to what psychologist, marriage therapists, and secular experts say. Rabbis have to stop dismissing everything that comes from outside the Beis Medrash. We can learn a lot from experts on these matters, especially intimacy. We have to start respecting people outside our community and not believing as a matter of faith that a yarmulka and a sheitel and a vort and a 500 guest wedding and sheva brachos and shana rishona are going to magically make for great marriages and happy couples.
There are many very happy marriages within our community. There are also many happy marriages outside our community. We can learn from them. We should learn from them. Hopefully we can arrive at a place where we can laugh at the absolute silliness of a Bill of Rights that says not to abuse women, to provide for one’s family, and to be intimate with one’s wife. I hope we get there soon.
United States District Court: District of New Jersey
October 10, 2013
FBI: Kidnaping, Cattle Prods Used to Force Orthodox Jewish Men To Divorce Wives
Rabbis have to stop dismissing everything that comes from outside the Beis Medrash
By Rabbi Eliyahu Fink
Jewish Press - August 28, 2013
 |
| Rabbi Mendel Epstein |
In terms of substance, I agree with a lot of what Rabbi Epstein says. Obviously. Who wouldn’t?
He comes off a bit paternalistic at times. He’s also working in a very male dominated social environment so some of what he says sounds uncomfortable to more modern ears. I think it’s clear that he is talking about a fairly insular Haredi community. Most of the modern orthodox or even centrist yeshiva type people I know are fully aware of these things and don’t need to be informed or even reminded to treat their wives respectfully.
Four items in his “Bill of Rights” for Orthodox Jewish wive are:
(1) A wife must be treated with respect and not be abused. A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get. (2) She is entitled to be supported by her husband. Read the kesubah. (3) A husband is obligated to honor and respect his wife’s parents. (4) She is entitled to a normal conjugal relationship.
He also cites some very specious anecdotal evidence about divorce and infidelity that sound exaggerated. He basically tries to assert the “it might lead to mixed dancing” argument as fact.
But here is the real problem. What kind of society needs to be told these things? How is this all not patently obvious? What kind of world needs a rabbi to affirm these basic principles?
It’s not as if Rabbi Epstein is saying that there a few people who need to be reminded or scolded about these things. He seems to be saying that this Bill of Rights is necessary for our entire society. This makes me ill.
We tout our communities as safe havens from the dysfunction on the outside. But is it true? Is there dysfunction on the outside? Are we functioning better? These are very difficult claims to answer. Rabbi Epstein seems to be poking a hole in our armor. It seems that in some ways we need to look to the outside as our guide on how to behave. Ask any middle-class, educated, family orientated person about marriage and there is no doubt that they will echo Rabbi Epstein’s supposed bombshell.
But how does this happen? How is it that we are falling behind?
It’s possible that we have demonized the outside so much in our communities and educational systems that we passively reject whatever they espouse. We gloss over חכמה בגויים תאמין. We think that we have the answers and they don’t. Eventually this leads us to a place where we tune out the good ideas and advice from the outside and bad habits and poor social standards become set in our communities.
I don’t doubt that there are many people who need to hear this Bill of Rights. But I also don’t doubt that anyone normal would agree with them. So why does it need to be said? It has to be that we simply ignore these issues. Why are we ignoring them if the rest of modern society is addressing them? There is no satisfactory answer to this question.
One more thing. Rabbi Epstein places too much faith in the Beis Din system. I have never in my entire life heard of someone who had a positive Beis Din experience. It seems extremely unlikely that a woman’s best course of action is to go to a Beis Din that requires both parties to agree to a binding arbitration. The problems with our Beis Din system are well known and it’s a disservice to his audience that Rabbi Esptein recommends entering into this basically corrupt system. See: Restoring Credibility to the Beis Din System.
The article ends with a call for action and ideas for solutions. I think it’s pretty simple. Reinstitute חכמה בגויים תאמין. Start learning from the outside. Read secular books of marriage and intimacy. Pay attention to what psychologist, marriage therapists, and secular experts say. Rabbis have to stop dismissing everything that comes from outside the Beis Medrash. We can learn a lot from experts on these matters, especially intimacy. We have to start respecting people outside our community and not believing as a matter of faith that a yarmulka and a sheitel and a vort and a 500 guest wedding and sheva brachos and shana rishona are going to magically make for great marriages and happy couples.
There are many very happy marriages within our community. There are also many happy marriages outside our community. We can learn from them. We should learn from them. Hopefully we can arrive at a place where we can laugh at the absolute silliness of a Bill of Rights that says not to abuse women, to provide for one’s family, and to be intimate with one’s wife. I hope we get there soon.
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October 10, 2013
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FBI: Kidnaping, Cattle Prods Used to Force Orthodox Jewish Men To Divorce Wives
2 Rabbis Among 4 Charged in FBI Sting
CBS News New York - October 10 2013
Rabbis Mendel Epstein and Martin Wolmark as well as Ariel Potash and Fnu Lnu were arrested after the FBI raided several locations overnight, including Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Suffern, a home in Brooklyn and at least one other location in New Jersey.
Potash and Lnu are accused of being “tough guys” who kidnapped and beat up the husbands of distraught wives seeking a divorce. Epstein and Wolmark allegedly approved and arranged the beatings, according to the criminal complaint.
According to Jewish law, in order to get a divorce a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a “get,” the complaint said.
Only a husband can initiate divorce by issuing the “get,” but a wife has the right to sue for divorce in rabbinical court, court papers said.
According to the criminal complaint, an undercover FBI agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife who was seeking a divorce from her unwilling husband. A second undercover agent posed as her brother.
In August, the undercover agents called Wolmark saying they were “desperate for a religious divorce and were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain a divorce,” the complaint said.
“There are a couple of ways to do that,” Wolmark allegedly said in a recorded phone conversation. “You have to, we have to, convene a special beth din and see if there are grounds to, to, to coerce him on the ‘get.’”
Wolmark said the process “could be very costly” and requires “special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through the end,” the complaint said.
“In other words, you need to get him to New York where someone either can harass him or nail him. Plain and simple,” he said, according to the complaint.
Wolmark then linked up the undercovers with Epstein, who met him at his house in New Jersey about a week later — a meeting that was recorded, the papers said.
“Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the ‘get,’” Epstein allegedly said.
He said they would use “tough guys” who utilize “electric cattle prods, karate, handcuffs and place plastic bags over the heads of husbands,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, Epstein said if a cattle prod “can get a bull that weighs five tons to move, you put in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know.”
Epstein said he commits a kidnapping every year to year and half, authorities said.
He said it would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the “tough guys,” authorities said.
Epstein told the undercovers that Wolmark officiates during the kidnapping and that his son was one of the so-called “tough guys” who “uses his karate skills” on the victims, court papers said.
They allegedly arranged to meet in Rockland County in October to begin the process of authorizing the use of violence to obtain a forced “get.”
In subsequent phone conversations, the undercover agent posting as the brother suggested he could lure the female undercover’s husband to New Jersey, the complaint said.
Epstein eventually proposed that the husband be brought to a warehouse in Middlesex County, where Lnu and Epstein were later seen by FBI surveillance teams scoping out the location, prosecutors said.
On Oct. 2, the undercover female agent met with Wolmark, Epstein, Potash and Lnu to get approval for the use of force, authorities said.
Potash said that he “does whatever the rabbis tell him” while Lnu wrote everything down, court papers said.
After the meeting, Epstein confirmed the plan and authorized the use of force to obtain the “get” and $20,000 was wire transferred by one of the undercover agents to Epstein, authorities said.
Ten more people have been taken into custody in connection with case, 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg reported.
The investigation is ongoing.
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3 rabbis arrested in divorce scandal at Rockland yeshiva
ABC News (WABC) - October 10, 2013
SUFFERN (WABC) -- Three rabbis, including one who claims to have conducted more than 2,000 divorces, were arrested for allegedly pressuring Orthodox Jewish men into giving their wives religious divorces.
Rabbi Mendel Epstein, Rabbi Martin Wolmark, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein and a fourth man, Ariel Potash, are facing charges. As many as six others people are also in custody but may not be charged.
The investigation revealed that unhappy Orthodox Jewish wives who wanted a divorce were paying $100,000 to the rabbis. In exchange, the rabbis would facilitate divorce, frequently by hiring armed thugs kidnap the husbands and beat them until they agreed.
The investigation also revealed the activity had been going on for 20 years or more.
One of the rabbis, Mendel Epstein, claims to have been involved in more than 2,000 divorces and has advocated for a group called "A Jewish Wife's Rights."
"Mendel Epstein talked about forcing compliance through the use of 'tough guys' who utilize electric cattle prods, karate, handcuffs and place plastic bags of the heads of husbands," FBI Special Agent Bruce Kamerman said.
To divorce in the Orthodox community, a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a "get." A woman whose husband will not consent is known as an agunah.
FBI agents raided the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Suffern at around 9 p.m. Wednesday. They loaded equipment into several unmarked cars and left after midnight.
Students were forced to wait in the yeshiva's parking lot during the raid.
Meanwhile, FBI agents were also at Rabbi Epstein's house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, executing a search.
The suspects allegedly hired by the rabbis were based in Middlesex County.
The investigation came out of the FBI Newark office.
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FBI raids Monsey yeshiva in divorce-gang probe
By James O'Rouke and Steve Liberman
LoHud - October 10, 2013
MONSEY — The FBI descended late Wednesday on Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in connection with an investigation into a gang that pressured men into giving their wives religious divorces, a law enforcement source told The Journal News.
The FBI told Ramapo police to follow them to the yeshiva at 89 Carlton Road about 9 p.m. Authorities remained at the scene until early Thursday morning, when several agents were seen leaving the building, loading equipment into several unmarked cars with New Jersey license plates.
The source said arrests were made in Rockland as well as New Jersey.
An FBI spokesman in the New York City office said actions in connection to the investigation were also ongoing in Brooklyn.
The spokesman would only say that searches were being conducted in connection with an “ongoing investigation.” He could not confirm whether arrests had been made and referred all calls to the agency’s Newark, N.J. office. Officials there could not be reached for comment.
Agents could be seen inside the school's lobby area and at various points outside the building. Students outside the yeshiva said the school is for High School children. Several said they were inside the building when the raid began, but were forced to remain in the parking lot during the bulk of the law enforcement action.
Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe on Wednesday said he was aware of the raid, but referred all questions to the FBI. Ramapo police also would not field questions concerning the matter
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FBI raids Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey
Westchester News 12 - October 10, 2013
MONSEY - The FBI raided a Yeshiva in Rockland County last night in what is being described as a "pay for divorce" kidnapping sting.
Law enforcement officials could be seen outside and inside the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey around 9 p.m. yesterday.
An FBI spokesman says they have charged four people with unlawfully seizing, confirming, kidnapping, abducting, holding a person for ransom reward and otherwise threatening them or conversing with them to get a divorce. The FBI criminal complaint says Martin Wolmark, Mendel Epsteinand Ariel Potak, and Fnu Lnu aka "Yaakov" used violence to obtain a forced divorce. The suspects are scheduled to appear in Trenton, NJ federal court at 2 p.m. today.
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Arrests made in N.J., N.Y. as FBI raids Rockland County temple
By Jeff Goldman
New Jersey Journal - October 10, 2013
Arrests made in N.J., N.Y. as FBI raids Rockland County temple
By Jeff Goldman
New Jersey Journal - October 10, 2013
Arrests have been made in New Jersey and New York after the FBI raided a temple in Rockland County, according to two published reports.
A group reportedly pressured men into granting their wives religious divorces, LoHud.com reported.
FBI agents were spotted moving equipment into unmarked vehicles with New Jersey license plates outside Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in the Monsey section of Ramapo, N.Y. the report said. The temple is about three miles from the New Jersey border.
A rabbi gave more than 2,000 couples divorces, according to a report on the website of WABC-7.
Authorities are also searching the rabbi's residence in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Rabbis Accused in Plot to Kidnap, Torture Husbands to Pressure Divorces
An undercover agent posed as an unhappily married woman
By Jonathan Dienst
NBC News New York - October 10, 2013
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Rabbis accused of plot to torture man into granting divorce
Associated Press - October 10, 2013
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Rabbis Said to Use Torture, for Fee, to Force Divorce
By Joseph Goldstein
Published: October 10, 2013
Brooklyn rabbi tortured Jewish husbands with cattle prod to force divorce: feds
By Oren Yaniv
New York Daily News - October 10, 2013
Rabbis charged in Jewish divorce shakedown to be released on bail
Rabbis Accused in Plot to Kidnap, Torture Husbands to Pressure Divorces
An undercover agent posed as an unhappily married woman
By Jonathan Dienst
NBC News New York - October 10, 2013
Two Orthodox rabbis are accused of plotting kidnappings and beatings of Jewish men to pressure them into granting religious divorces to their wives.
The FBI said Thursday that agents arrested rabbis Mendel Epstein and Martin Wolmark in a sting operation, where an undercover posed as a woman who wanted out of her marriage. Orthodox rules allow only a man to initiate a divorce.
The men allegedly asked for tens of thousands of dollars to target husbands, and claimed they did jobs like this every 18 months in their community.
The criminal complaint alleged the two rabbis boasted of a plan to use electric cattle prods, plastic bags over heads and other methods to persuade reluctant husbands. In the sting operation, the FBI said the pair earlier this month even helped scout a warehouse in Middlesex County to hold husbands hostage.
The rabbis allegedly met in Rockland County in August to authorize the kidnapping-for-divorce-plot. They said they wanted $10,000 for the kidnapping and $50,000 to $60,000 to pay a "tough guy."
In one exchange with an undercover posing as an unhappily married woman, Wolmark allegedly told her "you need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end."
"You need to get him to New York where someone can either harass him or nail him," he allegedly added.
The FBI said two others have also been charged.
The suspects were expected to appear in federal court in Trenton Thursday on the federal charges.
Attempts to locate attorneys for the suspects were not immediately successful Thursday morning.
FBI agents were seen overnight searching a Brooklyn home and an upstate yeshiva in connection with the investigation.
The charges include plotting to kidnap, abduct, hold for ransom and threaten to "coerce a man to conduct a divorce.
Rabbis accused of plot to torture man into granting divorce
Associated Press - October 10, 2013
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Two rabbis and two other men are accused in an FBI sting carried out in New Jersey and New York of plotting to kidnap and torture a man to force him to grant a religious divorce.
Rabbis Mendel Epstein and Martin Wolmark charged Jewish women and their families thousands of dollars to obtain religious divorces, known as "gets," from recalcitrant husbands, the FBI said in a complaint released Thursday.
Two undercover agents contacted Wolmark and Epstein in August about seeking a divorce. According to the complaint, Epstein spoke about forcing compliance through "tough guys" who use electric cattle prods and even place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.
The FBI said the price was more than $50,000.
The investigation took place in Ocean and Middlesex counties in New Jersey and Rockland County in New York. Several defendants were arrested overnight in raids in both states, including in Brooklyn, the FBI said. They were scheduled to appear in federal court in Trenton late Thursday.
The two other defendants are Ariel Potash and a person identified as Yaakov. Their hometowns were not provided in the complaint.
The undercover agents were a woman posing as a wife unable to get a divorce from her Orthodox Jewish husband, and her brother.
They met with Epstein at his Ocean County home in August, during which the rabbi spoke about "kidnapping, beating and torturing husbands in order to force a divorce," the complaint said.
"Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get," Epstein is quoted as saying during the conversation, which was videotaped.
Epstein is also quoted saying he wanted to use a cattle prod to torture the reluctant husband.
"If it can get a bull that weighs 5 tons to move ... you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute, the guy will know," he said, according to the complaint.
He also said that his group did a kidnapping every year to year and a half, and that the cost is $10,000 for a rabbinical court to approve the action and $50,000 to $60,000 for "tough guys" to carry it out.
The undercover agents wired him $20,000, the complaint said.
Under Jewish law, a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a "get" to get a divorce. If a husband refuses to grant one, a wife has the right to sue in rabbinical court.
The court complaint said that a rabbinical court was held in Rockland County on Oct. 2 as part of the FBI sting, attended by all four defendants, during which the use of violence was authorized against the woman's husband.
When the woman asked Potash what his role was, he answered: "Whatever the rabbis tell me," the complaint said.
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By Joseph Goldstein
Published: October 10, 2013
The two rabbis offered an unusual service to Jewish women who could not get their husbands to agree to a divorce, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For a fee, they would convene a rabbinical court and authorize the use of violence to get a recalcitrant husband to agree to a divorce, the F.B.I. said.
But that was not all, according to court papers unsealed Thursday morning. They were also willing to employ hired muscle, two men known as Ariel and Yaakov, to actually kidnap the man and torture him, until he pledged to divorce his wife, according a criminal complaint in Federal District Court in Newark.
Two men whom the authorities describe as rabbis – Martin Wolmark and Mendel Epstein – as well as a third man, Ariel Potash, have been charged in a kidnapping conspiracy according to court papers. In connection to the case, F.B.I. agents carried out raids in South Brooklyn and Monsey, N.Y., in Rockland County on Wednesday evening.
In some Orthodox Jewish communities, a divorce is granted only once a husband provides his wife with a document known as a get. And stories of the frustrations and obstacles that women face in their quest to obtain a get are commonplace. While a woman can sue in rabbinical court to try to secure a get, some husbands do not comply with the court’s edict.
That, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is where the rabbis came in. “You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end,” Rabbi Wolmark said in a recorded telephone conversation with an undercover F.B.I. agent posing as a woman whose husband would not grant her a get.
During the telephone conversation, on Aug. 7, Rabbi Wolmark referred the undercover agent to Rabbi Epstein, whom he described as “a hired hand” who could help. The fee was high, according to the court papers: $10,000 to pay the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 or more to actually carry out the kidnapping.
In a subsequent meeting at Rabbi Epstein’s home in Ocean County, New Jersey, Rabbi Epstein explained what he planned to do. “Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get,” according to a recorded conversation that is described in the criminal complaint. Rabbi Epstein, according to the court papers, mentioned that his “tough guys” utilized cattle prods and other torture techniques that were not likely to leave a mark.
Should the husband go to the police, Rabbi Epstein said, it was important that there were no obvious signs of injury. Without such physical evidence, Rabbi Epstein said, the police were unlikely to probe too deeply into the affairs of the Orthodox Jewish community, which can appear impenetrable to outsiders.
“Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here, they don’t want to get involved,” Rabbi Epstein explained, according to the criminal complaint.
The court papers, which outline the undercover F.B.I. sting operation, do not describe instances in which the defendants actually carried out such kidnappings. But the authorities said that the evidence in the case includes a recorded conversation in which Rabbi Epstein “claimed that his organization kidnapped one recalcitrant husband approximately every year and a half.”
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LoHud - October 10, 2013
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Various sects prominent in Rockland, NYC region
Many groups moved to area from eastern Europe, UkraineBy Peter KramerLoHud - October 10, 2013
The figures involved in Wednesday’s arrests are considered ultra-Orthodox followers of Judaism and are not Hasidic. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are a prominent community in Rockland, where they live alongside members of several Hasidic sects. New York is home to several sects:
Chabad Lubavitch: This worldwide movement, based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, focuses on educational outreach and inspiring Jews to perform mitvos as a way to establish a connection with God. The name Lubavitch refers to a town in Lithuania, where the movement was based during the 19th century. The Lubavitch moved to the U.S. from Russia in 1940, seeking to become a force in American Judaism.
Satmars: Originally from what is now Hungary, the Satmars are currently based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They believe that the state of Israel should not exist until it can be established by the messiah. The Satmars believe in strict separation from the outside culture and are perhaps the most isolated Hasidic sect. Satmars established the Kiryas Joel community in Orange County.
Bobover: Named after the Polish village in which the sect originated, the Bobovers were nearly exterminated during the Holocaust. After World War II, they moved to Crown Heights. But during the late 1960s, they resettled in Boro Park, Brooklyn. The late Grand Rabbi Schlomo Halberstam, who led the Bobover sect for more than 55 years, built his community to include more than 100,000 in Brooklyn, Miami, Montreal and several other cities.
Skver: A sect that started in Chernobyl and moved to Skver, Ukraine. The sect later moved to Brooklyn and then to Ramapo, where its name was Anglicized to become New Square. The current spiritual leader, Grand Rebbe David Twersky, is the sixth-generation leader of the Skvers.
Viznitz: A sect that originated in Viznitsia, Ukraine, a rural village in the Carpathian mountains. The sect fled to Brooklyn around World War II. Grand Rebbe Mordechai Hager led them in Kaser, a village in the middle of Monsey, until his 2012 death.
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NY Rabbis Arrested: Rabbis Wolmark And Epstein Tortured Husbands With Handcuffs, Karate For Jewish Divorces
By John Ericson
Medical Daily - October 10, 2013
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Two rabbis stand accused of running a “divorce-gang” that systematically used kidnapping and torture to coax legal consent from Jewish men reluctant to dissolve their marriages. The dubious service was offered to religious women as a way to bypass the orthodox provision whereby prospective divorcees must obtain their husband’s “get” — a signed document agreeing to the dissolution. For a fee, the gang would convene a rabbinical court and sanction the use of cattle prods, handcuffs, and karate.
A sweeping sting carried out Wednesday by the FBI led to the arrest of Rabbi Martin Wolmark of the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah and ultra-conservative divorce mediator Rabbi Mendel Epstein of Brooklyn, N.Y. Authorities also arrested two “thugs” identified in court documents as Ariel and Yaakov. The latter allegedly worked for the rabbis as hired muscle, and were responsible for some of the more convincing intimidation techniques.
The enforcement effort began in early August, when an undercover FBI agent and another agent posing as her brother contacted Rabbi Wolmark for his services. After the female agent told him she was would do anything to obtain her reluctant husband’s get, Rabbi Wolmark agreed to take their case and put them in touch with Rabbi Epstein, who would help them coordinate the kidnapping. As if to dispel any lingering doubts about the service’s legitimacy, Rabbi Epstein immediately began listing his “preferred methods,” which involved cattle prods and karate moves, USA Today reports.
"Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get," Rabbi Epstein told the undercover FBI agents. "You probably love your wife, but you'd give a get when they finish with you... Hopefully there wouldn't even be a mark on him."
"I guarantee that if you're in the van, you'd give a get to your wife," he added.
According to a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., the expensive service required women to pay $10,000 for the rabbinical court’s authorization and between $50,000 and $60,000 to hire men for the job. “Tough guys” like Ariel and Yaakov were allegedly told to keep scars and bruises to a minimum, as a dearth of physical evidence would deter authorities from probing the close-knit orthodox community, the New York Times reports.
“Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here, they don’t want to get involved,” Rabbi Epstein explained, speaking to the undercover agents.
Rabbi Wolmark, Rabbi Epstein, and their hired thugs are expected to appear in court on Thursday.
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Brooklyn rabbi tortured Jewish husbands with cattle prod to force divorce: feds
By Oren Yaniv
New York Daily News - October 10, 2013
Desperate wives paid Rabbi Mendel Epstein up to $100,000 to 'convince' their husbands to divorce them, according to sources and court papers.
Two rabbis plotted to kidnap Jewish husbands, torture them with electric cattle prods and force them to grant their desperate wives religious divorces, the feds charged Thursday.
Rabbi Mendel Epstein, 68, of Brooklyn and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, 55, of Monsey, Rockland County, were among 10 people arrested in the barbarous scheme with tentacles that ran all the way to the rabbinical court.
Epstein is accused of running an unholy crew that charged women trapped in marital limbo $70,000 to $100,000 to strong-arm their stubborn husbands into granting a Jewish divorce known as a “get,” a criminal complaint reveals.
Wolmark, who presides over the rabbinical court in Monsey, is charged with accepting money to make sure the court approved the gets.
“They didn’t do it out of religious conviction,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko told a judge Thursday in a federal court hearing in Trenton, N.J. “They did it for money.”
Epstein was secretly recorded touting the persuasive tactics of his “tough guys” — including a muscle man known only as “Yaakov.”
“Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get,” Epstein was videotaped saying.
“I guarantee that if you’re in the van, you’d give a get to your wife,” he went on, according to the criminal complaint. “We take an electric cattle prod . . . you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know.”
Epstein also said his gang “convinced” husbands to grant the get by putting plastic bags over their heads.
“We prefer not to leave a mark,” Epstein allegedly told the undercover agent. “Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here. They don’t want to get involved.”
One man told the Daily News on Thursday that he had first-hand knowledge of the torture Epstein’s henchmen are accused of doling out. “They forced it (the get) on me,” said the Brooklyn man, who would only give his name as Mr. Goldstein. “They busted my fingers, busted my ribs. They kept me handcuffed.”
“These gets aren’t kosher. They force it,” said Goldstein. “It destroyed me.”
Last week, Epstein was told the husband would be lured to a warehouse in New Jersey. Epstein then scoped out the location with Yaakov, the complaint charges.
The gray-bearded rabbi was arrested Wednesday night when the FBI raided his Kensington home and locations in New Jersey and at the Orthodox Jewish enclave of Monsey.
Epstein, Wolmark and the others were ordered held without bail following their court appearance.
The crackdown followed an FBI sting launched in August — and featuring an undercover agent poising as a Jewish wife who wanted freedom from her failed marriage.
Under Orthodox Jewish law, only a man can grant his wife a get. Husbands have been known to hold their wives hostage to marriage out of spite or to leverage money.
Wives in limbo are called “agunah” — Hebrew for chained women — and are not allowed to remarry within the religion without first “getting a get.”
Epstein, a prominent divorce mediator, appeared in the 2011 documentary about Jewish divorce titled “Women Unchained.”
The criminal complaint doesn’t detail actual kidnappings or torture. But Epstein was recorded saying he and his crew pull off the abductions every year to a year and a half, court papers show.
Prosecutors said in court that they believe the group was involved in at least 20 kidnappings over the years.
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Rabbis 'beat me, stun-gunned my genitals'
Star Ledger - October 11, 2013
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Rabbis in divorce-gang sting could be out on bail soon
USA Today - October 16, 2013
Rabbis and others arrested last week are accused of using violence to coerce religious divorces.
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By Josh Saul and Laura Italiano
New York Post - October 11, 2013
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Abraham Rubin states he was sexually assaulted by the torturing divorce gang with a stun-gun to his genitals
The rabbis accused of pocketing piles of cash to kidnap and torture Orthodox husbands on behalf of divorce-seeking wives targeted a Brooklyn man in 1996, he claimed in a lawsuit.
Abraham Rubin said that Rabbi Mendel Epstein and Rabbi Martin Wolmark had him forced him into a van outside his synagogue before beating him and stun-gunning his genitals.
He was left bloody and half-naked on the side of the road — all to force him to agree to a religious divorce, or “get,” from his wife, he claimed in the suit.
Rubin’s 1997 lawsuit was dropped by both parties in 2000, and a Brooklyn DA probe was halted because “the victim could not identify any of his assailants,” said a spokeswoman for DA Charles Hynes.
“We were so upset that we couldn’t prosecute,” said one law enforcement source. “They did it in a place that was very dark and they were all wearing masks,” the source said.
“We wanted Epstein, but we just couldn’t prove it,” the source said. “It was all in a world we couldn’t get deep inside.”
Rubin’s allegations put Epstein and Wolmark on investigators’ radar, and on Friday he applauded the arrests.
“We are very, very grateful to the Creator that finally this happened,” Rubin said in a statement given to The Post.
“These imposters, these so-called rabbis, are a disgrace to our community,” Rubin said. “The masks have finally been taken off their faces.”
The two rabbis remain locked up in New Jersey after a federal sting caught them agreeing to take $50,000 from an agent posing as a “get”-seeking Orthodox wife.
In exchange, the rabbis promised to lure the agent’s “husband” into a warehouse and torture him into agreeing to the split, the feds said.
“We take an electric cattle prod… You put it in certain parts of his body,” Epstein was secretly recorded promising, the feds’ complaint alleged.
Borough Park-based social worker Elya Amsel, 60 — who still remembers visiting the battered Rubin at Maimonedes Hospital — said the arrests, “will raise the eyebrows of the whole gentile world.
“The Italians are nothing compared to what went on here with the Jews.
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2 rabbis, 2 others charged in Jewish divorce shakedown
By Ted ShermanStar Ledger - October 11, 2013
In a bizarre case involving threats of kidnapping, beatings and physical torture — including the use of an electric cattle prod— two rabbis were charged in New Jersey on Wednesday in a scheme to force men to grant their wives religious divorces.
Two others were also charged in the case, which grew out of an undercover sting operation involving a female FBI agent who posed as a member of the Orthodox community seeking a divorce.
As many as six others may also be charged, officials said.
Sources say the investigation was sparked by a similar case in 2011, when David Wax, a 49-year-old rabbi and Talmudic scholar from Lakewood, and his wife, Judy, were charged with kidnapping and severely beating an Israeli man who had refused to give his wife a divorce. That case has been repeatedly adjourned for months—a sign of possible cooperation.
According to the FBI, most of those being charged today were arrested last night after a meeting at an undisclosed warehouse in Middlesex County, as the group gathered to launch the kidnapping plan. The rabbis were arrested at their homes. Many of the still unnamed defendants had been recruited as the muscle of the operation, sources said.
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Attorney: Monsey rabbi tied to divorce gang could be released on bail by Friday
LoHud - October 16, 2013
A Monsey rabbi alleged to have been a mastermind behind a kidnap team that used torture as a means to persuade Orthodox Jewish men to grant their wives a religious divorce hopes to be out on bond by Friday, his attorney said.
Rabbi Martin “Mordachai” Wolmark, the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, appeared in federal court Wednesday alongside several men accused of having a role in the kidnappings.
Wolmark’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, of the Manhattan-based firm Brafman & Associates, said U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert agreed to his client’s release on condition that he surrender $5 million bond secured by property, remain under electronic home confinement and turn his passport over to authorities.
“We are pleased the court accepted Rabbi Wolmark’s bail package. That he was able to offer $5 million in equity shows that his family, friends and community support him. We look forward to defending these allegations with the Rabbi a free man,” Agnifilo said in an email. “We are posting the properties tomorrow and we hope he will be released by Friday.”
Agnifilo said two properties are being used to secure the bond. He declined to identify the properties or their owners.
Joining Wolmark in court Wednesday was Rabbi Mendel Epstein, another suspected mastermind and a prominent Ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator with homes in Brooklyn and New Jersey, and Ariel Potash, Binyamin Stimler, David Helman and Sholom Shuchat, four of the eight suspected gang members.
The six men sat shackled in the jury box, wearing green jumpsuits and black yarmulkes as more than 50 supporters and family members watched the proceedings. A U.S. marshal unlocked Epstein’s handcuffs, but not those of the others.
Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko said none of the men should be released regardless of their religious backgrounds.
“Had we been talking about the mob or the Bloods or the Crips, we wouldn’t even be discussing a bond in this case,” he told Arpert. “There’s no difference between them and these other gangs that engage in violent crime.”
The men are accused of plotting to kidnap, beat and torture — with cattle prods — Jewish husbands reluctant to provide a religious divorce, or “get,” to their wives. The complaint claims the group kidnapped and tortured as many as 24 Orthodox Jewish men over the years.
Wolmark and his co-defendants had been held without bail since their arrest Oct. 9.
A clerk in Trenton’s federal court said the group is being held in a jail in Philadelphia but was unable to name the facility.
Epstein’s bail package was similar to Wolmark’s, the most notable difference being that four of his daughters and his wife are expected to put up five pieces of property valued at more than $4 million to secure his release. Agnifilo said the difference between the two bonds is reflective of Wolmark’s available assets rather than any indication of his culpability in the case.
Four other defendants, Jay Goldstein, Moshe Goldstein, Simcha Bulmash and Avrohom Goldstein, have yet to have bail hearings. If convicted, the defendants could all face up to life in prison.
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USA Today - October 16, 2013
Rabbis and others arrested last week are accused of using violence to coerce religious divorces.
TRENTON, N.J. — A rabbi who is charged in a kidnap-torture scheme that used cattle prods to force Orthodox Jewish husbands to grant their wives divorces has been responsible for 20 or so kidnappings, a prosecutor alleged Wednesday.
The remarks of Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko were made in federal court in Trenton, N.J., during a bail hearing for six of the 10 defendants who were charged in the plot.
"He's conducted ongoing criminal activity for 20 years," Gribko said of Rabbi Mendel Epstein. "Kidnappings, beatings."
Epstein — who will remain under home confinement at his house in Lakewood, N.J., once released — denies any wrongdoing, his Manhattan-based attorney, Susan Necheles, said in court.
"It's a matter for trial," she said.
But the case is growing, Gribko said during his appeal to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert to keep Epstein locked up.
"My phone has not stopped ringing with calls from potential victims," he said, mentioning the hotline for those calls, 800-CALL-FBI. "The threat to the public is ongoing as we speak."
Rejecting those comments, Arpert ruled that Epstein, a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator in Brooklyn, N.Y., another rabbi, Martin "Mordachai" Wolmark, of Monsey, N.Y., and the four other men could be freed on bail that runs into millions of dollars for some defendants.
Wolmark's Manhattan-based attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said he expects Wolmark, who is the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, to be released Friday. There was no word from authorities or defense attorneys on whether any of the other men had worked out the conditions of their bail by Wednesday night.
Arpert ordered home confinement, electronic monitoring and other tight restrictions for all six defendants.
Epstein, 68; Wolmark, 55; Ariel Potash, a 40-year-old traveling salesman; Binyamin Stimler, 38, a psychotherapist and teacher who has a home in Lakewood but is listed as a Brooklyn resident; David Helman, 30, a personal trainer from Far Rockaway, N.Y.; and Sholom Shuchat, 28, the father of two small children — were being held at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center and were expected to be returned there Wednesday evening.
The yeshiva was raided by the FBI on Oct. 9. Wolmark was set to be released on a $5 million bond secured by two properties that have $2 million in equity. Agnifilo said the bail amount is tied to Wolmark's available assets and "does not reflect his culpability."
His conditions followed those of Epstein's, who is allowed out of his home for medical reasons, to visit his attorney and for religious worship, once during the day and for Shabbat on Friday evening.
Four daughters and Epstein's wife were scheduled to put up five pieces of property totaling more than $4 million in value to secure his release.
The six men sat shackled in the jury box wearing Army green jumpsuits and black yarmulkes as more than 50 supporters and family members watched the proceedings. Several people rose for the white-bearded Epstein as he was led into the courtroom. A U.S. marshal unlocked his handcuffs, but not those of the others.
Four other defendants — Jay Goldstein, 59, Moshe Goldstein, 30, Simcha Bulmash, 30, and Avrohom Goldstein, 33 — have yet to have bail set and were still being held at the detention center. All the men — including Epstein — are listed as having a hometown of Brooklyn, except for Wolmark, Helman and Bulmash. There was no hometown listed for Bulmash, a New York state resident.
"This man is all about his family," Necheles told Arpert, mentioning Epstein's eight children, more than 50 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. "If he were to flee, all of his children and grandchildren would be out on the street."
Gribko said none of the men should be released regardless of their religious backgrounds.
"Had we been talking about the mob or the Bloods or the Crips we wouldn't even be discussing a bond in this case," he said. "There's no difference between them and these other gangs that engage in violent crime."
The men are accused of plotting to kidnap, beat and torture — with cattle prods —Jewish husbands reluctant to provide religious divorces, or gets.
If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.
An undercover FBI special agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife whose husband was unwilling to consent to divorce, while a second agent posed as the wife's brother, the complaint said. On Aug. 7, both agents called Wolmark to present their case and tell him they were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain the divorce. Wolmark explained how he could coerce the divorce, but it would be expensive, the complaint said.
Epstein told them the kidnapping would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the "tough guys" who would conduct the beating and obtain the forced get, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, the "tough guys" would use electric cattle prods, karate and handcuffs, and place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.
"We take an electric cattle prod," Epstein said.
"Electric cattle prod, OK," the undercover agent replied.
"If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move ... you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know," Epstein said, according to the complaint.
A law-enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said the arrests were the direct result of a 2011 case in which a Lakewood couple, David and Judy Wax, were accused of kidnapping an Israeli national in an attempt to force him to divorce his estranged wife in Israel. Proceedings in that case have been repeatedly postponed since the arrest.
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Rabbis in divorce-gang sting could be out on bail soon
By Ken Serrano
Asbury Press - October 16, 2013
A rabbi who is charged in a kidnap-torture scheme that used cattle prods to force Orthodox Jewish husbands to grant their wives divorces has been responsible for 20 or so kidnappings, a prosecutor alleged Wednesday.
The remarks of Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko were made in federal court in Trenton, N.J., during a bail hearing for six of the 10 defendants who were charged in the plot.
"He's conducted ongoing criminal activity for 20 years," Gribko said of Rabbi Mendel Epstein. "Kidnappings, beatings."
Epstein — who will remain under home confinement at his house in Lakewood, N.J., once released — denies any wrongdoing, his Manhattan-based attorney, Susan Necheles, said in court.
"It's a matter for trial," she said.
But the case is growing, Gribko said during his appeal to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert to keep Epstein locked up.
"My phone has not stopped ringing with calls from potential victims," he said, mentioning the hotline for those calls, 800-CALL-FBI. "The threat to the public is ongoing as we speak."
Rejecting those comments, Arpert ruled that Epstein, a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator in Brooklyn, N.Y., another rabbi, Martin "Mordachai" Wolmark, of Monsey, N.Y., and the four other men could be freed on bail that runs into millions of dollars for some defendants.
Wolmark's Manhattan-based attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said he expects Wolmark, who is the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, to be released Friday. There was no word from authorities or defense attorneys on whether any of the other men had worked out the conditions of their bail by Wednesday night.
Arpert ordered home confinement, electronic monitoring and other tight restrictions for all six defendants.
Epstein, 68; Wolmark, 55; Ariel Potash, a 40-year-old traveling salesman; Binyamin Stimler, 38, a psychotherapist and teacher who has a home in Lakewood but is listed as a Brooklyn resident; David Helman, 30, a personal trainer from Far Rockaway, N.Y.; and Sholom Shuchat, 28, the father of two small children — were being held at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center and were expected to be returned there Wednesday evening.
The yeshiva was raided by the FBI on Oct. 9. Wolmark was set to be released on a $5 million bond secured by two properties that have $2 million in equity. Agnifilo said the bail amount is tied to Wolmark's available assets and "does not reflect his culpability."
His conditions followed those of Epstein's, who is allowed out of his home for medical reasons, to visit his attorney and for religious worship, once during the day and for Shabbat on Friday evening.
Four daughters and Epstein's wife were scheduled to put up five pieces of property totaling more than $4 million in value to secure his release.
he six men sat shackled in the jury box wearing Army green jumpsuits and black yarmulkes as more than 50 supporters and family members watched the proceedings. Several people rose for the white-bearded Epstein as he was led into the courtroom. A U.S. marshal unlocked his handcuffs, but not those of the others.
Four other defendants — Jay Goldstein, 59, Moshe Goldstein, 30, Simcha Bulmash, 30, and Avrohom Goldstein, 33 — have yet to have bail set and were still being held at the detention center. All the men — including Epstein — are listed as having a hometown of Brooklyn, except for Wolmark, Helman and Bulmash. There was no hometown listed for Bulmash, a New York state resident.
"This man is all about his family," Necheles told Arpert, mentioning Epstein's eight children, more than 50 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. "If he were to flee, all of his children and grandchildren would be out on the street."
Gribko said none of the men should be released regardless of their religious backgrounds.
"Had we been talking about the mob or the Bloods or the Crips we wouldn't even be discussing a bond in this case," he said. "There's no difference between them and these other gangs that engage in violent crime."
The men are accused of plotting to kidnap, beat and torture — with cattle prods —Jewish husbands reluctant to provide religious divorces, or gets.
If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.
An undercover FBI special agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife whose husband was unwilling to consent to divorce, while a second agent posed as the wife's brother, the complaint said. On Aug. 7, both agents called Wolmark to present their case and tell him they were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain the divorce. Wolmark explained how he could coerce the divorce, but it would be expensive, the complaint said.
Epstein told them the kidnapping would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the "tough guys" who would conduct the beating and obtain the forced get, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, the "tough guys" would use electric cattle prods, karate and handcuffs, and place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.
"We take an electric cattle prod," Epstein said.
"Electric cattle prod, OK," the undercover agent replied.
"If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move ... you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know," Epstein said, according to the complaint.
A law-enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said the arrests were the direct result of a 2011 case in which a Lakewood couple, David and Judy Wax, were accused of kidnapping an Israeli national in an attempt to force him to divorce his estranged wife in Israel. Proceedings in that case have been repeatedly postponed since the arrest.
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Judge sets bail for Jewish scribe, 3 others in kidnapping-divorce case
Judge sets bail for Jewish scribe, 3 others in kidnapping-divorce case
By Allie Malloy
CNN - October 22, 2013
New York (CNN) -- A federal judge set bail Friday for four of 10 men facing kidnapping charges after allegedly arranging the violent assaults of Orthodox Jewish husbands, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Judge Douglas Arpert set bail at $1 million for Jay "Yaakov" Goldstein, while the other three -- Moshe Goldstein, Avrohom Goldstein and Simcha Bulmash -- had bail set at $500,000, said Matthew Riley, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey.
Jay Goldstein's attorney, Aidan P. O'Connor, told CNN on Thursday he hoped his client would be able to leave jail and reunite with his family.
Goldstein, Rabbi Mendel Epstein and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, along with seven other defendants, are accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars to orchestrate the kidnappings of Jewish husbands to persuade them to grant divorces to their wives, according to a criminal complaint.
Goldstein is a sofer, a Jewish scribe who transcribes the Torah and writes other religious documents, including divorce papers, according to his attorney.
On Wednesday, Arpert set bail between $500,000 and $1 million for the two rabbis, along with four other defendants: Ariel Potash, Binyamin Stimler, David Hellman and Sholom Shuchat.
Arpert also ordered home arrest -- with exceptions to leave for medical reasons, attorney meetings and religious purposes -- for all six, according to court documents.
Jay Goldstein, the rabbis and the other men were arrested after an FBI undercover investigation that led to a raid on October 9, according to the criminal complaint.
In one conversation with undercover FBI agents, the complaint alleges that Epstein talked about forcing the divorces with the help of hired "tough guys," who he said used plastic bags to cover the husbands' heads, and electric cattle prods and karate to assault them.
"I guarantee you that if you're in the van, you'd give a 'get' to your wife. You probably love your wife, but you'd give a 'get' when they finish with you," Epstein told the undercover FBI agents.
A "get" is a document that Jewish law requires a husband to present to his wife to be issued a divorce, the complaint says.
Without it, a woman is considered an "agunah," a chained woman bound to a man no matter how over their marriage might be. The implications of not having a get are serious in the Orthodox Jewish world. For Jews of other denominations, who interpret Jewish law differently, the requirement of a get is less stringent or dismissed altogether.
An Orthodox Jewish woman who does not receive a get, however, runs the risk of being shunned in her community and labeled an adulteress if she dares move on. And any future children she has are considered bastards permitted to marry only other bastards.
The complaint says that Epstein told the undercover FBI agents that his organization had kidnapped a husband every 12 to 18 months.
The complaint also says that Wolmark told the agents, "You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end."
"I can say that we are pleased the court accepted our bail proposal. I anticipate Rabbi Wolmark will be released shortly," said Marc Agnifilo, Wolmark's attorney.
"The rabbi is a highly respected Gittin scholar, and he steadfastly denies the allegations that he ordered violence," said Agnifilo.
Wolmark, Esptein and Potash's attorneys all told CNN that they are confident their clients will have their bail processed and be out on a house arrest by the end of this week.
CNN's calls to the other defendant's attorneys were not answered.
All 10 defendants pleaded not guilty last week. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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The Associated Press - October 17, 2013
Several men including two rabbis charged with plotting to arrange religious divorces through torture and kidnapping are to be released on bail.
A total of 10 defendants were charged last week in federal court in Trenton. Several were in court Wednesday for hearings and were released on $500,000 bail.
The men were arrested in an undercover operation that began in August when two FBI agents, one posing as a woman trying to get a divorce, contacted the rabbis. According to an FBI complaint, one rabbi spoke about forcing compliance through "tough guys" who use electric cattle prods and even place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.
The U.S. Attorney's Office has said the organization involved in the alleged plot had been involved in up to 20 kidnappings.
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Four more granted bail in religious divorce shakedown by rabbis
By Ted Sherman
Star Ledger - October 18, 2013
Bail was set today for another four of the men being held in a scheme to beat and torture men who refused to grant their wives religious divorces.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert in Trenton set bail at $1 million for Jay “Yaakov” Goldstein.
Bail for Moshe Goldstein, Avrohom Goldstein and Simcha Bulmash was set at $500,000, charged as being enforcers or witnesses in the scheme.
Six others, including two Orthodox rabbis, had bail conditions set earlier in the week.
Rabbi Martin Wolmark, 55, a school administrator at a yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., was released on $5 million bail secured by his home and other property, and placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring. Bond for Rabbi Mendel Epstein, 68, who lives in Lakewood, was set at $1 million, and was also ordered remain under house arrest, as was Ariel Potash, 40.
Binyamin Stimler, David Hellman, and Sholom Shucha were all to be released on $500,000 bail and also subject to house arrest with electronic monitoring.
The ten were arrested in an undercover operation that began in August when two FBI agents, one posing as a woman trying to get a divorce, contacted the rabbis.
Under Jewish law, a wife may not sue for divorce unless her husband agrees to provide her with a document known as a “get.” The court, known as a “beth din,” can order the husband to issue a get, however, in a bitter divorce dispute there is often no quick resolution and no guarantee he will accept the edict. Without a get, a woman can end up in limbo for years. She becomes known as an “agunah,” a woman chained to her marriage, unable to remarry.
According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, the men were willing to “convince” recalcitrant husbands to grant gets by any means possible. According to the FBI, the going rate was $10,000 to pay off a rabbinical court to approve a kidnapping and then another $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the “tough guys” who would mete out beatings and other torture until a reluctant spouse finally acquiesced.
In one recorded meeting, Epstein spoke about kidnapping, beating and torturing husbands to in order to force a divorce, according the complaint. Epstein is well known in the Orthodox community as a divorce mediator.
No trial date has been set.
Man at heart of FBI sting operation is well known in the torrid world of non-amicable Orthodox divorce.
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Accused Kidnap Rabbi Known For 'Wild West' Rules
By Adam Dickter
The Jewish Week - October 26, 2013
Man at heart of FBI sting operation is well known in the torrid world of non-amicable Orthodox divorce.
Nearly any Orthodox woman who has struggled with the process of obtaining a halachic divorce from an uncooperative or vindictive husband in the New York area has heard the name Mendel Epstein.
The 68-year old rabbi, who appears to have homes in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Lakewood, N.J., has been closely involved in the world of agunot, or “chained women,” for some three decades, serving as a toen, the halachic equivalent of a lawyer.
In an interview with the Five Towns Jewish Times last summer, Rabbi Epstein said he was “disturbed by the number of women who find themselves in unbearably difficult situations” in divorce proceedings. He proposed a “bill of rights” for Jewish wives that includes, “A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get.”
But according to the FBI, which rounded up Rabbi Epstein and nine other men in an alleged interstate abduction ring last week and raided several homes and a Monsey yeshiva, his methods of persuading husbands to come around ran afoul of the law, if not halacha, and could land him and his associates in federal prison.
“I always knew he is a vigilante operating in system similar to the Wild West,” said Rivka Haut, a longtime activist on behalf of agunot who has known the rabbi for years, but said she had no direct knowledge of any abductions.
However, she said that women in such situations frequently asked her advice about pursuing such extreme measures. Haut, a co-founder of the advocacy group Agunah, Inc., says she has always counseled people to steer clear of violence or illegal schemes.
“Most of these women had to leave the marriage not because they want to go live with someone else, but because they married someone with serious problems,” Haut said. “Usually, they are desperate to be halachically released.”
According to the FBI, there are plenty of area women desperate enough to go through with illegal means. The complaint by New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, which was obtained by The Jewish Week, says Rabbi Epstein boasted to undercover agents that he carried out batei din, or rabbinical courts, to authorize the use of force, followed by abductions and coerced divorces on a regular basis “every year … year and a half” for an unspecified time period.
Fishman told The New York Times that two dozen husbands in divorce cases have been identified who may have been abducted from New York and taken to New Jersey to be roughed up by the defendants.
A message left at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home was not returned as of Tuesday afternoon. A number listed for Mendel Epstein in Lakewood appeared to be connected to a fax machine. Attempts to identify a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.
The Asbury Park Press, citing an unnamed source, reported on Oct. 11 that the investigation was directly related to a similar ongoing case involving an Orthodox couple from Lakewood, David and Judy Wax, who were charged in 2011 with abducting an Israeli man to force him to grant a get. That case is still pending. More arrests related to both cases will be forthcoming, the source told Asbury Park Press.
The FBI investigation originated in August and spanned until Oct. 7, when agents, including two posing as an agunah and her brother apprehended the defendants in a warehouse in Middlesex County, N.J. The fake scheme involved luring a supposed husband from New York City.
The complaint alleges that Rabbi Epstein solicited $10,000 for the rabbis presiding in the bet din and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 for “tough guys” to carry out the abduction and coercion. The complaint does not specify whether Rabbi Epstein himself was to receive any of the fees.
It doesn’t take more than an Internet search to link Rabbi Epstein to controversy. One man, Givon Zirkind, has launched an online crusade against the rabbi, posting an e-book and several YouTube videos that accuse him of various misdeeds against him. The rabbi’s name comes up on several blogs devoted to Orthodox wrongdoing, abuse and corruption.
The rabbi himself speaks candidly about his unorthodox methods in an interview in “Women Unchained,” a 2011 documentary by filmmakers Beverly Siegel and Leta Letik.
“I received a call from a young lady; she called and told me her son was kidnapped off a bus in Texas,” Rabbi Epstein says in a clip from “Women Unchained” posted by the Journal News of Rockland.
“She had heard that I have an ability to do things that are outside the normal parameters and normal channels and if I can help her find her son and if I can help her get a get. … I told her to first call the FBI. If the FBI comes out [and says] that they can’t help, I would then be a little bit interested to see what I can possibly do.”
The Oct. 7 complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton quotes Rabbi Epstein saying that “basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get.” At one point he mentioned electric cattle prods being used, and at another said his son used karate to persuade the kidnapped men.
In addition to Rabbi Epstein, the other rabbis arrested were Rabbi Martin Wolmark and Rabbi Jacob Goldstein. Rabbi Wolmark is rosh yeshiva of Shaarei Torah, a prominent High School in upstate Suffern. On Wednesday night, following the arrests, federal agents in six cars conducted a search for evidence at the yeshiva, as well as at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home, according to press reports.
Another individual was identified as Ariel Potash, who is cited in the complaint as the man who served as a shaliach, or emissary, to accept the get on behalf of the agent pretending to be an agunah.
Rabbi Goldstein is not the same person as the politically active Crown Heights chasidic leader by the same name who is chairman of Brooklyn’s Community Board 9.
In all, 10 people were arrested in the scheme, apprehended at the warehouse in New Jersey as they gathered to carry out the fake kidnap plot. The case is a federal matter because it involves alleged kidnapping and crossing state lines. Denied bail, the defendants remained in custody as of Tuesday afternoon, though a bail hearing was set for that day.
Rabbi Epstein is known to have served as a toen, or advocate/adviser to people appearing before rabbinical courts for the past 30 years. It is unclear if he has any other livelihood, though haut said he at one point held a synagogue pulpit and was the principal of a girls’ yeshiva.
A business, Mendel Epstein and Associates is listed at his Brooklyn address with him as managing partner.
The arrests, which garnered national news coverage, cast a spotlight on the ugly world of non-amicable Orthodox divorces in which men are empowered to prevent women from moving on with their lives.
She said that while she and Aranoff deal extensively with the rabbi and his activities in their book, to be published by MacFarland Publishing, they had not named him in early drafts, but will do so now.
Numerous organizations have been formed to advocate for such women and New York law has been amended to allow judges to consider a couple’s get status when dividing marital assets. Also, several area rabbis have been known to act as intermediaries in such cases, sometimes asking for payment for their services.
Goon squads that force recalcitrant husbands to issue the divorce have been mostly the stuff of Jewish urban legend, though a few cases, such as the 2011 Wax case, have gone to the legal system.
Haut, an Orthodox activist who is working on an upcoming book, “The Agunah Chronicles,” with Susan Aranoff, with whom she cofounded Agunah, Inc., said she was “surprised to see the headlines” about the FBI sting but “not surprised to see the content.
“Everybody knew very well about his activities, which were not always on behalf of women, but sometimes on behalf of husbands. He plays many roles: dayan [judge], toen and vigilante.”
Haut said that when she and Aranoff started out as advocates for agunot, Rabbi Epstein approached them “in a very charming way” to teach them about a “fascinating, complicated world” and referred many women to their organization.
Haut faults leading rabbis who shape modern halacha for failing to come up with a takana, or solution, to empower women to free themselves from bad, sometimes dangerous marriages, though many such modifications have been proposed by rabbis and agunah advocates. Proposals include a pre-nuptial agreement to provide a get, and a process of ex post facto annulment of a marriage agreement, if needed.
“Today’s rabbinate is not willing to use halachic solutions that certainly exist, leaving the field wide open for other rabbis to take advantage,” said Haut.
While denouncing any illegal methods, Haut said, “I blame the established rabbis for leaving a vacuum where people like that can step in.”
In addition to the legal issues in the case, there is also the question of whether those who may have paid tens of thousands for the rabbi's alleged services got what they paid for.
While it has been a common practice to pressure husbands into granting a get through actions within the community -- such as issuing a seruv, a kind of excommunication from religious life, --physically forced gittin create, at the very least, a halachic gray area.
"A get, in limited circumstances, after a reputable beis din has decided it is proper to pressure the recalcitrant husband, is valid even if given under duress," said Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America. "Usually, though, in our society, such duress consists of “shunning” sorts of pressures: not allowing the man to receive an aliya, and things like that.
"Physical duress, if it violates secular law, would not, to the best of my knowledge, be permissible."
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Two brothers Avrohom and Moshe Goldstein admit forcing Jewish men to divorce
By Tim O'Connor
New York Times - March 11, 2014
TWO BROOKLYN brothers admitted they were the muscle in an unholy alliance that forced reluctant Jewish men to give their wives religious divorces.
Avrohom Goldstein, 34, pleaded guilty in federal court in Trenton on Tuesday to traveling in interstate commerce to commit extortion, authorities said. Moshe Goldstein, 31, pleaded guilty to the same charge Monday. Last week, David Hellman, 31, of Brooklyn pleaded guilty to similar charges.
The accused ringleaders — rabbis Mendel Epstein, 68, of Brooklyn and Martin Wolmark, 55, of Monsey — have pleaded not guilty, along with seven other alleged enforcers.
The Goldsteins were nabbed Oct. 9 following an FBI sting at an Edison, N.J., warehouse where an undercover FBI agent posed as the brother-in-law of a woman who wanted a divorce, or “get,” that her husband refused to grant. The group discussed confining, restraining and threatening the foot-dragger, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said.
The brothers face up to 20 years in prison.
Two brothers Avrohom and Moshe Goldstein admit forcing Jewish men to divorce
Two brothers Avrohom and Moshe Goldstein admit forcing Jewish men to divorce
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Ramapo divorce gang: 2 brothers admit violently forcing man into religious divorce
By Steve Lieberman
The Journal News - March 13, 2015
Two Brooklyn brothers have pleaded guilty to conspiring to violently coerce a man to give his wife a religious divorce as members of an eight-member gang led by a Monsey rabbi, federal prosecutors said.
Two Brooklyn brothers have pleaded guilty to conspiring to violently coerce a man to give his wife a religious divorce as part of an eight-member gang led by a Monsey rabbi, federal prosecutors said.
Avrohom and Moshe Goldstein became the latest enforcers of Jewish divorce law to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J. They pleaded guilty Monday to crossing state lines to commit extortion, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
The Goldsteins' guilty plea came a week after David Hellman, a personal trainer from Brooklyn, also admitted his role with the gang.
The kidnap team was masterminded by Rabbi Martin Wolmark, 55, the principal of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, and Mendel Epstein, 68, a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator from Brooklyn who published a book, "Bill of Rights of a Jewish Wife."
Federal prosecutors charge that, on Oct. 9, the team traveled to a warehouse in Edison, N.J., where they met with undercover FBI agents posing as a Jewish man's brother-in-law and others. The men intended to force the husband to give his wife a "get," a document which, according to Jewish law, must be presented by a husband to his wife to effect their divorce, authorities said, for a fee of $100,000.
The gang included the Goldsteins' father, Jay Goldstein, 59, Simcha Bulmash, 30, Ariel Potash, 40, of Monsey and Binyamin Stimler, 38, and Sholom Shuchat, 29, and Hellman, 31, all of Brooklyn. Prosecutors said the Goldsteins admitted that when they arrived at the warehouse, the group prepared to confine, restrain and threaten the victim.
Moshe and Avrohom Goldstein also admitted that, on Aug. 22, 2011, they and others went to a Brooklyn home where they restrained, assaulted and injured a man in an attempt to extort a divorce from him.
Each brother faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and at least $250,00 in fines. Moshe Goldstein's sentencing is scheduled for June 16, while his brother's is June 20. They are free on $500,000 bond each and subject to GPS monitoring.
In conversations secretly recorded by FBI agents, Epstein said husbands could be convinced to give the "get" by "tough guys" who used karate and handcuffs and sometimes put plastic bags over the husbands' heads. A preferred method involved a cattle prod, he said.
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The drama of Agunah Day
By Rachel Levmore
Jerusalem Post - March 5, 2014
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Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." –– Margaret Mead
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The drama of Agunah Day
By Rachel Levmore
Jerusalem Post - March 5, 2014
International Agunah Day is signified annually on the day of Ta’anit Esther – this year on March 13.
Love turned to hate, fights for freedom, religious retribution, entrapment, fear, escape, police manhunts, arrests, international intrigue, vengeance – all were part of the scene of Jewish divorce law in the year that has passed since International Agunah Day 2013.
The protagonists included women pitted against men, politicians and lawmakers, rabbis and feminists, Israeli police and the FBI – all playing their roles in the great drama of the life of an agunah – a victim of get-refusal (refusal to grant a divorce valid by Jewish law).
All the actors on the stage have real names. This is due to the fact that they are real people. A quick review will remind us of the scenes played out in just one year: In a dramatic leap to his own freedom, get-refusing prisoner Shay Cohen jumped from a second-story bathroom window in the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court building on King George Street, thereby permanently imprisoning his wife in a state of limbo. A major manhunt including helicopters and informants did not help the Israel Police find him. His whereabouts are still unknown.
The man whose wife did not want him as her husband is now “WANTED” by the Israeli rabbinical courts.
Gital Dodelson burst forth on the world’s stage, baring her soul in an article published in The New York Post.
Through her explanation of how the rigid Orthodox society brought about her marriage to the great-grandson of the luminary of Jewish law Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the outside world caught a glimmer of understanding into some of the roots of potential get-refusal.
Although Dodelson appeared to be a self-sufficient Rutger’s law student, she had become a victim of get-refusal at the hands of her Orthodox husband.
Outrage poured out of the Internet, with over 12,000 signatures within 48 hours for a petition calling on the young husband to grant her the get – causing a boycott of one of the Jewish world’s major publishing houses, employers of the get-refuser’s family members. Apparently due to the media exposure and the social activism, Dodelson received her get after three years of living in limbo.
An FBI sting operation resulted in the arrest of toen rabbani (rabbinic court advocate) Rabbi Mendel Epstein and nine others. According to press reports, Rabbi Epstein and his associates had provided services to desperate agunot which included abduction of the get-refusers, roughing them up and even using electric cattle prods to coerce them to give the get. Epstein, who is known for his “Bill of Rights” where he proclaimed, “A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get,” is charged with kidnapping and beating get-refusers and faces a possible sentence to be served in US federal prison.
The Agunah Unit of the Israeli rabbinical courts discovered the whereabouts in the United States of an ultra-Orthodox get-refuser who had fled Israel under his brother’s passport, thus avoiding the court’s restraining order.
During the divorce proceedings it had become apparent that the husband was under suspicion as a pedophile.
After his escape from Israel, the rabbinical court turned to the Justice Ministry to issue an extradition request on that basis to the American authorities, since get-refusal is not an extraditable offense. In an unusual turn of events, the escapee was returned to Israel and handed over to the Israeli authorities.
In contrast, the rabbinic organization “Beit Hillel-Attentive Spiritual Leadership” was the first of its kind in Israel to adopt a policy of exhorting all rabbis, teachers and spiritual leaders to ensure that their followers sign a prenuptial agreement for the prevention of get-refusal. By way of eliminating the phenomenon before it occurs, Beit Hillel embarked on a major campaign in print and online which publicized this solution to the agunah problem to laypeople and rabbis alike.
The commitment to signing prenuptial agreements even reached the race for chief rabbi of Israel. In his public campaign for the position, Rabbi David Stav, chairman of the Tzohar rabbinical organization, in a heretofore unheard-of step, listed this particular solution for the agunah problem as one of his policies.
Politicians and lawmakers were particularly active this past year. The most amazing initiative was taken by MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid), who was joined by MK Shuli Moalem-Rafael (Bayit Yehudi) and succeeded in passing a law which restructured the Commission for the Appointment of Rabbinical Court Judges. Where this commission had formerly been composed predominantly of a men, the new law guaranteed a minimum of four female members, with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni appointing a female rabbinical court advocate as one of members.
Representation of the previously ignored half of the population in the choosing of those individuals who control the citizens’ personal status, will help ameliorate the plight of the women whose futures will be determined by those judges.
Unlike a Greek tragedy which develops as a result of the “gods” playing with their mortal chess pieces while the humans cannot escape their fate, this Jewish tragedy is in the hands of the mortals themselves – the husbands and wives acting according to the rules the rabbis have or have not ordained which would allow them to form their own destiny and the destiny of the Jewish people.
The Talmud declares the development of Jewish law “is not in the heavens!” (Bava Metzia 59b), but rather was given to the rabbinic leaders to decide.
The tools are in their hands. It is time to use them to eliminate unnecessary Jewish drama – by resolving and preventing all cases of agunot.
International Agunah Day is signified annually on the day of Ta’anit Esther – this year on March 13.
The writer, director of the Agunah and Get-Refusal Prevention Project of the International Young Israel Movement in Israel and the Jewish Agency, holds a PhD in Jewish law; is a rabbinical court advocate; member of the Israel Commission for the Appointment of Rabbinical Court Judges; and is one of the authors of the Israeli prenuptial “Agreement for Mutual Respect.”
_______________________________________________________________________________Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
_______________________________________________________________________________
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." –– Margaret Mead
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