[Avodah] forcing a GET

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R"n Toby Katz posted a link to
http://getamarriage.com/HarChoko_of_RabbeinuTam.htm

Her summary was:
> Letter from R' Dovid Eidensohn warning that certain types of
> activity that are becoming more common in the US, actions intended
> to help agunos -- namely, certain kinds of public pressure on
> husbands to  give a GET (including ostracizing and public
> humiliation) -- may  result in gitten that are halachically
> invalid, may be halachically forbidden, and also may be damaging
> to the innocent children of the men involved....

As I understood that article, RDE draws a distinction between a case where "a woman demands a GET because she doesn’t like the husband", and other cases. He holds that "we may ostracize only when the husband has ... definitely committed some sin, and is definitely someone the Talmud requires to divorce."

Is he accusing a community of being united to ostracize someone en masse, in a situation where the local halachic authority(s) did NOT declare that husband as being required to divorce? Perhaps I'm just foolishly naive, but I would hope that no community would be so united except in such cases as where the local authorities endorsed the ostracization.

(I am also very offended by his comment (in the final paragraph), addressed to people who engage in activities which he feels result in pasul gitten, that "If this keeps up, your children will not be able to marry Haredi children." My understanding is that the halacha does not distinguish between Haredim and any other kind of Jew. If a situation arises in which someone is not able to marry a Haredi, then he/she is unable to marry other Jews as well. And if there is a machloskes haposkim involved, the lines would be drawn by the psak of each posek, not by any labels.)

Akiva Miller


____________________________________________________________
53 Year Old Mom Looks 33
The Stunning Results of Her Wrinkle Trick Has Botox Doctors Worried
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4fab1fca6fac81009d40st02vuc