A woman recently approached one of the Batei Din in Israel and asked that it arrange a get from her husband despite the fact that their marriage had been a harmonious one.

The woman, in her 40s and the mother of two children, explained that her husband had run into a credit financing crisis after trying to develop a private business. He was unable to pay his debts to the banks and desperate, he turned to the gray market. However, his business plans continued to fail and he was unable to meet the payments for his debts to the gray market of half a million shekels.

When it became clear to the loan sharks that the husband was not meeting their payments, they began to come to his house and threaten him and his family members. The husband was forced to go underground. The woman who realized that her husband’s life was in danger and that she had no means of helping him and that he might also disappear without leaving a trace, asked her husband to bring their marriage to an end. However, her husband did not comply with her request, and shortly later, he disappeared completely.

After the judges heard the details of the tragic story, they decided to transfer the case to the Agunot Division under the authority of HaRav Eliyahu Maimon. Employees of the Agunot Division utilized technological means and intelligence to locate the husband and establish contact with him.

At first, the husband refused to cooperate and eventually cut off contact with the Beis Din. Rabbanim then contacted the husband’s relatives with whom he maintained a close relationship and explained to them that the Beis Din had no interest in harming the husband or discovering his hiding place, but was only interested in releasing his wife via a get.

After several conversations, the husband was convinced to cooperate but refused to announce where and when the meeting would be held for the purpose of granting the get. In the end, a date was agreed on when the get would be granted, and a team from the Agunot Division set out with a general direction but without prior knowledge of the location of the meeting.

While the team was traveling, a contact person who mediated between the team and the husband, notified the team of the location for the signing but then proceeded to change the final destination three times in a journey that lasted several hours. Finally, the Beis Din team met the husband, who was wearing a bulletproof vest out of fear for his life, and obtained his signature for the get.

The husband refused to meet with more than two members of the team, which precluded the presence of eidim, a sofer, and dayanim. Therefore, the two team members had the husband sign authorizations for the sofer to write a get for his wife and a shalich to transfer the get to his wife’s hands. As soon as the team members returned to the Beis Din, the get was written and transferred to the wife.

The director of the Rabbinical Batei Din, HaRav Eli Ben-Dahan, said: “The Batei Din and the Agunot Division use creative, innovative and bold methods to find solutions and don’t avoid any effort required to save a woman from her aginus, even in cases where they grapple with professional challenges.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)