Tweet for freedom: #FreeHerNow

When children first learn the story of Purim, they hear about Queen Esther and how she saved the Jewish people.

Two-thousand, five hundred years later, Jewish women are still making headlines.

The Women of Wall and the Other Women of the Wall are hot topics this week. Twenty-seven of the new members of the 19th Knesset are women.

While the new Israeli government is still “in formation,” on Wednesday a special meeting was held to mark International Agunah Day, which is observed each year on the Fast of Esther before Purim. An agunah or a “chained woman” has been denied a Jewish divorce or get by her husband and cannot remarry. It is as if she is chained to this man, unable to move forward with her life. 

Sadly, there are thousands of such women around the world.  

Dr. Aliza Lavie, joined by many other new members of the Knesset, sponsored a meeting to hear from former agunot and representatives of ICAR, the International Coalition for Agunah Rights…

…all of whom offered suggestions on how to help stop these tragic situations.

Several rabbis, also new MKs, got their chance to speak during the two hour session, and showed by example how everyone has to work together.

But at the end of the morning session, this special event was for women…

 …and was led by women who were newly elected by the people from a broad coalition across political lines.

Some husbands have been offered huge sums of money to agree to give their wives their freedom. In Israel, some have been put in jail.

For a certain get-refusing husband in the US, public protests, a Facebook campaign, and even embarrassing his family have failed to get him to free his wife who has suffered for years.

Maybe If we could just get Sarah Silverman, her sister and niece to start tweeting the way they got all that attention for the Women at Wall, we could have another Purim miracle and save a women’s life.  

Meanwhile, a new rally is planned against get-refuser, Aharon Friedman.

Thursday, February 28, 2013
11:45am – 1:15pm.
Longworth House Office Building.
Independence Avenue
between South Capitol Street SE and New Jersey Avenue SE.
Washington, DC

Please, spread the information and attend.

#FreeHerNow