Talk:Agunah

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I've NPOVed this a bit. I was wondering if there is a legal reference for Judge Menachem ha-Kohen's verdict of >400,000 NIS for withholding a get. JFW | T@lk 15:27, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

We need more modern-day sources as well. Could anyone reference a cause celebre agunah case here? JFW | T@lk 20:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

One example of the "lion's den" case is women whose husbands died in the Twin Towers. Even if their husbands's bodies were not identified, women have been alowed to remarry. Chani

Could you provide a source that we could WP:CITE for this? This is a very good modern-day example that would really inform the article, Chani. JFW | T@lk 22:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


But after all this todo the husband shows up, it seems to hit the fan anyway. This todo appears provisional at best - not a real divorce just a standin separation cum new marriage in hopes the old hubbie stays dead.

Contents

[edit] Aguna

Redaktor (talk · contribs) changed the spelling to "aguna", which seems to be supported by a Google search. However, the page title is still AgunaH. Anyone object to a formal move? JFW | T@lk 16:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This move has my strong support. --Redaktor 16:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

At first glance, it just didn't look right to me, so I looked up similar words, and this is what I found:

We don't yet have an article on "Schinah".

On the other hand, I found:

When I did a Google search; "aguna" had double the amount of hits then "agunah", but "agunah's" hits were more of substance. Also when doing the search on "aguna"; Google asked "Did you mean: laguna ?"; kind of not sure if this is what I meant.

Based on all this; in my humble opinion "agunah" is correct, with "aguna" redirected to it. Itzse 21:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I always regretted not calling myself "Itzseh" or "Itzeh"! Itzse 21:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can ever decide what is 'correct'. We can try though to find a sensible and consistent spelling. There really is no good reason for the final 'h' in most of these words. Judah is clearly an exception since it has passed into the English language that way.--Redaktor 22:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
You have a point; but I think that most of these words written with an "h" are actually pronounced "ah" closer to a "mapik heh" then for example "tuna" where the "a" doesn't continue with a flourish. I think we can say that Tuna is pronounced Tu-na but agunah or aguna is pronounced agun-ah. Whatever you decide is fine with me, I was only trying to clarify the issue. Itzse 19:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I hope no-one thinks it should be pronounced agun-ah, because that would indeed not be correct. The pronunciation is agu-na. Discussion here also tends to favour omission of final silent he. --Redaktor 12:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Being refused a get - not an agunah?

Tltdma (talk · contribs) removed from the intro the paragraph that describes the plight of women whose husbands refuse to grant a get as means of extortion. I don't understand his point that "this is not the halachic definition of agunah". Well, Wikipedia does not use halacha as a content guideline - almost everybody refers to these women as agunot. That includes a long cover article in the Jewish Observer some years ago. Lishna de-alma nakat. JFW | T@lk 14:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the article needs to seperate the modern usage, which is technically incorrect, from the classical usage. Wikipedia is not a halachic dictionary, but here it is defining a halachic term. To confuse it with a modern activist term is not informative. The term in its classical sense refers to a woman who cannot remarry because her marital status is in doubt. That's the definition of the word. A woman who is not recieving a get because her husband doesn't want a divorce is halachicly an ishes ish. She's stam a married woman. She has a right to collect support from her husbands estate, he must still provide for her physical and medical needs, and if he dies her children inherit property and she walks away capable of marrying a cohen. A real aggunah is in a much harsher reality where she is under all the chumros of a married woman and all the chumros of a single woman. Both definitons need to be mentioned, but the sections should be clearly seperated. It might even be helpful to seperate the articles into Agunah (Jewish Law) and Agunah (Social Problem), or something similar. Basejumper2 07:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Solutions Proposed

For a lengthy discussion on the proposed solutions to agunot see Jewish Women in Jewish Law by Rabbi Moshe Meiselman.

[edit] Statistics and incidence

Does anyone have any figures to indicate how many couples are affected by aguna issues, and what proportion of the population it represents? That woud a valuable addition to the article. --Redaktor 12:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If we are speaking of Agunahs as women who's husbands are unaccounted for, then there are right now very few. After ww1, the holocaust, the refugee migration to the US, the war of independence and the subsequent sephardi migration, they were prevelant and unfortunately probably will be again if similar tragedies arise. As to agunahs as women who's husbands do not want to give them a get, there's no way to know, but the article has some interesting numbers in it already. Basejumper2 14:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The incidence is very low. Recently published figures in Israel show that there are less than 400 couples affected in Israel - with slightly more men than women being refused a get. Rabbinate Stats: 180 Women, 185 Men 'Chained' by Spouses. Israel National News (2007-08-23). Retrieved on 2007-08-26.

[edit] Fell into a lion's den

I corrected the citation from Masekhet Yevamot according to a well established correction in the Hebrew equivalent article. There is one detail which I don't know how to incorporate in the article. In Israel, where civil marriage is impossible, but there is a system of common law marriage, many secular men don't wait too long for their wife's acceptance of the get, and simply live with their new partners under the common law marriage terms. If their new partner is single or divorcee, it doesn't affect the status of their new children, but it does create a strange case of ad-hoc bigamy (if they die without leaving a will, bothe women are entitled to their share in his property, according to a supreme court ruling). Being stigmatized as mamzer is still a strong holdback which prevents "chanined women", even secular ones, from acting similarly. DrorK 05:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)