Friday, March 22, 2024

Lysistrata in Kiryat Joel

 Kiryas Joel is a Hasidic community in New York State, in which ancient religious traditions can come into conflict with modern customs.   

Haaretz has the story, about religious activist Adina Sash:

'Call Your Rabbi, Husband': Why These ultra-Orthodox New York Women Are on a 'Sex Strike'.  After hiring a plane to fly a "Free Malky" banner over the Hasidic enclave of Kiryas Joel, the ultra-Orthodox feminist activist Adina Sash decided a sex strike by the community's women would be the next step in pressuring a local man to give his wife a religious divorce.  by Rachel Fink

"Sash, who goes by the handle flatbushgirl, is singularly focused on using her platform to call attention to women in the ultra-Orthodox community, of which she considers herself a full-fledged member, whose husbands refuse to give them the Jewish bill of divorce known as a get. According to Jewish law, it is the man who gives the get and the woman who receives it, never the other way around.

"Last week, Sash aimed her sights on the place where, according to her, Jewish women yield the most power: The bedroom. Sash called for Orthodox women to go on a "mikveh strike." According to Jewish law, following menstruation, married women must immerse in a mikveh, or ritual bath, before they can have sex with their husbands – which many do later that night.

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"She also advocates that the sex strike take place on "mitzvah night," by which she means Friday night. Like engaging in sexual relations directly after the mikveh, many observant Jews give special status to sex on the Sabbath, which relates to the rabbinic obligation to delight in the Sabbath.

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"According to an Instagram story she posted on the day she announced the current strike, "When your husband says, 'Why?' say, '... Please call your rabbi and figure out a way to help free Malky,'" she wrote.

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"How is it possible that the rabbis have compassion for men, giving them a way out but not women?" Sash continued. She is referring to a rabbinic loophole called a heter meah rabbanim (literally, permission of 100 rabbis) which allows men to remarry in the rare instance that a wife refuses to receive a get. While this could theoretically result in an "agun," or chained man, the rabbis came up with a solution allowing the man to remarry based on the biblical law that states that a man can have more than one wife. However, since a woman cannot be married to two men, both ancient and modern rabbinical courts are unwilling to apply this exemption to women."

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