Marriage in Judaism is the documentation of a contract between a Jewish man and a Jewish woman in which God is involved. In Judaism, a marriage can end either because of a divorce document given by the man to his wife, or by the death of either party. Certain details, primarily as protections for the wife, were added in Talmudic times.
A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as semikha—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.
A ketubah is a Jewish marriage contract. It is considered an integral part of a traditional Jewish marriage, and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom, in relation to the bride. In modern practice, the ketubah has no agreed monetary value, and is seldom enforced by civil courts, except in Israel.
In the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religious law, a mamzer is a person who is born as the result of certain forbidden relationships or incest, or the descendant of such a person. Mamzer status is not synonymous with the traditional western definition of illegitimacy, since it does not include children born to unmarried mothers.
An agunah is a Jewish woman who is stuck in her religious marriage as determined by halakha. The classic case of this is a man who has left on a journey and has not returned, or has gone into battle and is missing in action. It is used as a borrowed term to refer to a woman whose husband refuses, or is unable, to grant her a divorce.
Legal responses to agunah are civil legal remedies against a spouse who refuses to cooperate in the process of granting or receiving a Jewish legal divorce or "get".
A get, ghet, or gett is a document in Jewish religious law which effectuates a divorce between a Jewish couple. The term is also used to refer to the divorce itself. The get is a 12-line document written in Aramaic. The requirements for a get include that the document be presented by a husband to his wife. The essential part of the get is a very short declaration: "You are hereby permitted to all men". The effect of the get is to free the woman from the marriage, and consequently she is free to marry another and that the laws of adultery no longer apply. The get also returns to the wife the legal rights that a husband held in regard to her.
The Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy, also known as Yeshiva University High School for Boys (YUHSB), MTA or TMSTA, is a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school and the boys' prep school of Yeshiva University (YU) in the Washington Heights neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the brother school to the Samuel H. Wang Yeshiva University High School for Girls.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.
Zalman Nechemia Goldberg was an Ashkenazi rabbi, posek, and rosh yeshiva (dean) in Israel. He was a son-in-law of Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.
Emory University School of Law is the law school of Emory University and is part of the university's main campus in Druid Hills, Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1916 and was the first law school in Georgia to be granted membership in the American Association of Law Schools.
Howard (Chaim) Jachter is an American Orthodox rabbi, Dayan, educator, and author. He sits on the Beth Din of Elizabeth, New Jersey as a Dayan and Get administrator. Noted as an expert on the laws of Jewish divorce, he also chairs the Agunah Prevention and Resolution Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. Rabbi Jachter is also the consulting rabbi for over 60 Eruvs across the United States. He serves as the Rabbi of Sha'arei Orah, the Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck, and is a faculty member at the Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC). Author of sixteen books and over one thousand online and journal articles, he writes and lectures extensively on contemporary topics in Jewish law and thought. He has five children.
The Lieberman clause is a clause included in a ketubah, created by and named after Talmudic scholar and Jewish Theological Seminary of America professor Saul Lieberman, that stipulates that divorce will be adjudicated by a modern bet din in order to prevent the problem of the agunah, a woman not allowed to remarry religiously because she had never been granted a religious divorce. It was first introduced in the 1950s by rabbis in Judaism's Conservative movement.
The Jewish prenuptial agreement has been developed in recent times with the stated intent of keeping the Jewish woman from becoming an agunah in cases where the husband refuses to grant her a get. Without such an agreement, Jewish marriages cannot be dissolved without the consent and cooperation of both spouses. This new type of prenuptial agreement makes provisions for the possibility of divorce. By setting up rules prior to the marriage in the form of a contract, both spouses have an interest to negotiate a divorce in a dignified manner, and get-refusal is avoided.
Tehumin is a Hebrew-language annual journal of articles about Jewish law and Modernity.
John Witte Jr. is a Canadian-American academic. He is a Robert W. Woodruff University Professor and a McDonald Distinguished Professor at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia, and is director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion there.
A bat-kohen or bat kohen is the daughter of a kohen, who holds a special status in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinical texts. She is entitled to a number of rights and is encouraged to abide by specified requirements, for example, entitlement to consume some of the priestly gifts, and an increased value for her ketubah.
The Center for Women's Justice is a public interest law firm devoted to advancing and protecting the rights of women to justice, equality and dignity under Jewish law in Israel. CWJ is a member organization of ICAR, the International Coalition for Agunah Rights.
The Rabbinical courts are part of the Israeli legal system, which operates religious courts in parallel to the civil court system. The system, inherited from the previous British mandate system, grants religious courts jurisdiction over personal status matters such as marriage and divorce. Such courts exist for the recognized religious communities in Israel, including Muslim courts, Christian courts, and Jewish Rabbinical courts. These courts adjudicate personal status according to their respective religions, Jewish law in the case of Rabbinical courts.
Yitzchak (Irving) Breitowitz is an American-born Orthodox rabbi, lecturer and rabbinic authority. The Rabbi Emeritus of Woodside Synagogue Ahavas Torah, and the Rav of Kehillas Ohr Somayach, and lecturer at Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem.
