First, an explanation of terms:
An agunah (עגונה) is a woman whose husband has run off without giving her a get, a Jewish divorce. Though civically divorced, she cannot remarry by Jewish law, and the civic courts won't interfere because it's a religious issue. In many cases, the man is holding out for lots of money, or sometimes just ruining her life because he can. Fine.
Though the plight of the agunot has been becoming more and more publicized recently, the rabbis really have not done all that they can to help these women. They announce that he's shunned by the community, and sometimes get him thrown in jail, but more often than not, do nothing. And we all know that where there's a rabbinic will there's a halachic way. I mean, they found a way for elevators to run on shabbat but they can't find a way for these women to reclaim their lives?!!?!?!!
In Straight Talk, a book by Sally Berkovic, I read the most wonderful thing. Just like in Aristophanes' play Lysistrata, where the women all stop sleeping with the men until the men stop fighting, in a community in Canada all the women refused to go to the mikvah until an agunah in the community was given a get.
Now, in Judaism in order to be allowed to sleep with your husband, you must first wait seven days after your period and then dunk in the mikvah, a ritual bath. When the women in the Canadian community refused to go to the mikvah, they were in effect withholding sex from their husbands until such time as the agunah would be free to continue her life. Instead of one lonely, powerless woman trying to convince the rabbis to exert pressure on her husband, an entire community of horny men applied leverage to the shmuck so that he would give his wife a get. Awesome, aye?
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