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Thursday, January 6, 2011

If Jews Run the Media,They Are Not Competent

Specifically, they report the story of an Agunah (Literally "Chained Woman) and the resulting protests directed at the ex-husband of a woman who refuses to grant here a religious divorce, a "Get", which under Jewish law means that they are still married:

This should have been a good New Year’s for Aharon Friedman, a 34-year-old tax counsel for the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee. He spent time with his 3-year-old daughter, and could have been thinking about the influence he will have starting Wednesday, when his boss, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, becomes chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee.

Instead, Mr. Friedman, an Orthodox Jew, finds himself scrutinized in the Jewish press, condemned by important rabbis, and attacked in a YouTube video showing about 200 people protesting outside his Silver Spring, Md., apartment on Dec. 19. They were angered by Mr. Friedman’s refusal to give his wife, Tamar Epstein, 27, a Jewish decree of divorce, known as a get.
What a surprise, a Republican is being a selfish asshole.

While I do understand that he has issues with the custody arrangement, using the get as a way to extract concessions is beneath contempt.

That being said, I am aware of a number of these cases, and while I strongly object to these enforcement of these medieval (actually pre-medieval) religious statutes, I am aware that this happens dozens, if not hundreds of times a year.

What got to me was this paragraph:
Mr. Friedman and Ms. Epstein have been civilly divorced since April and share custody of their daughter, but they are still married according to Jewish law. And without a get neither he nor Ms. Epstein can remarry within the faith. She is considered an agunah, or chained woman.
(emphasis mine)

If the Jews run the New York Times, they are incompetent, because it misses two points:
  • First, if Mr. Reiedman gets civilly remarried, and has a child, a likely thing for a 34 year old Orthodox Jew, the child will not be a mamzer, who would be forbidden from marrying other Jews, while any child that Ms. Epstein has will be a mamzer. (3500 year old religious law is such a joy, huh?)
  • Second, it is possible for Mr. Friedman to get a rabbinical ruling allowing him to take a 2nd wife, while Ms. Epstein cannot.
    • This has been done in some cases where a wife is in a persistent vegetative state, or completely delusional, since a get cannot be granted under those conditions, it requires the knowing receipt of the get by the wife, so permission for a "2nd" wife has been given with the the "1st" wife continue to be financially supported by the husband.
    • In this case though, a rabbi approving a 2nd marriage is basically zero.
This makes the conditions of the Agunah unjust and unfair to the woman in the conflict. It is not, nor has it ever been, an equal imposition on both spouses, and a small amount of research should have made this unfortunate state of affairs quite clear.

Clearly, I need to contact the local president of my ZOG chapter and pass my complaint up the chain.

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