Susan Weiss, at The Blogs

Susan Weiss

Mar 24, 2024, 1:28 PM

Why we have not solved the agunah ‘problem’

Another year. Another Purim. And we still haven’t solved the "problem" of the agunah. And we probably never will. Here are three reasons: marginalization, reification, and polarization. Marginalization. Most persons assume that the agunah “problem” — the dilemma of the Jewish woman...

Mar 5, 2023, 4:18 PM

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Agunot are not the only vulnerable ones in the Jewish state

Illustrative: Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef meets with newly appointed Supreme Rabbinical Court judges in Jerusalem, July 13, 2016. (Yaacov Cohen/ Flash90/ File)

We're all threatened when basic rights are weak and hailed as secondary to a Higher Authority

Dec 15, 2022, 2:19 PM

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Four reasons the override clause should terrify women

A court hearing of two young Israeli women who petitioned the High Court to let them enlist in the IDF Armored Corps, at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on February 03, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Knesset would be able to pass religiously-driven laws that prop up gender separation, allow work discrimination, deny religious services, and harm property rights

Sep 28, 2022, 8:24 PM

The Case of the NY Agunah and her Dying Father-in-Law

In a recent case hailed as a victory for the plight of the agunah, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Rabbinate to declare whether it’s ok to delay the Israeli burial of a foreign national. The Rabbinate said “yes.” The...

Mar 16, 2022, 11:01 AM

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5 misconceptions about Jewish law’s chained women

A private rabbinical court dissolves the marriage of Tzviya Gorodetsky in June 2018. (courtesy, Center for Women's Justice/Rachel Stomel)

To begin with, get-refusal is not just the fault of few bad men

Jul 6, 2021, 5:40 PM

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State-sanctioned ransom and the agunah crisis

The state helps release Jewish women from marital captivity, which prevents most of us from noticing that it put us all in marital captivity to begin with

Feb 25, 2021, 10:16 AM

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Agunah Day: 3 times public outrage rescued chained women

Recent recipient of a get (religious divorce), Shira Isakov, who was nearly murdered by her husband, and then refused a get, before the public's outrage. (screenshot, channel 13)

These stories prove the Rabbinate can be pressured into reversing rulings that trap women in marriages long over. Now we know what we have to do

Mar 4, 2020, 12:30 AM

We are no longer in Shushan

For many years, many of us Israeli activists and lay persons grappling with the problems of marital captivity – a.k.a the problem of the agunah marked by the upcoming Fast of Esther – have assumed that the way to...

Nov 11, 2019, 2:25 PM

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‘Let him rot in jail’ is not the answer to divorce refusers

The theocratic power that could jail a man for 19 years for 'insolence' is the same power keeping women chained to marriage

Sep 4, 2019, 4:05 PM

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Why is the chief rabbi acting like the pope?

Illustrative. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau (L) and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef convene an emergency meeting against a new proposal to overhaul the conversion to Judaism system in the country on June 3, 2018. (courtesy, the Chief Rabbinate spokesperson)

Get-refusal is a heinous, vengeful act that must be eradicated - but not without due process, and the other protections of a democracy separated from religion

About Me

Susan Weiss, J.D. PhD., is the founder and director of the Center for Women’s Justice, an NGO set up with a feminist spirit and an ambitious objective: To shift the discriminatory status quo of religion and state regarding women, securing the way towards a more just and democratic society. CWJ envisions an Israel where the dignity and liberty of women are self-evident truths.