A Woman's Own: From agunah to freedom

It doesn't happen all that often, but I recently received a phone call that filled me with hope and optimism. My friend Sara, who had been an agunah [literally 'anchored' or 'chained', refers to a Jewish woman who is chained to her marriage because her husband's whereabouts are unknown or because he is unable to write her a binding get (divorce) due to mental or physical illness. A woman in such a situation is unable to remarry according to halacha] for over six years, whose story is saturated with some of the most painful and trying aspects of human manipulation and abuse, called to tell me she has remarried and has a baby. I must admit, there were times when I never thought she would reach this point. "You see," she said, "miracles do happen."

Sara was married for 12 years to a man who is publicly revered in the religious community of Jerusalem. He can be charming, charismatic and eloquent. Yet these same qualities are the very ones that turn him into a monster behind closed doors. Sara was trapped for years in his patterns of emotional abuse, and it took her that long to understand what was happening to her.

The now-ex-husband would systematically put her down, insult her, and demean her. He would toss the dinner she made into the rubbish, he would tell her how terrible she looked, he would isolate her from friends and family and would make her feel like she was worthless.

He was also a control freak, so that even when it seemed like he was being "nice," he was putting her down. "Don't you worry about the shopping, the banking, the driving," he would say, "I'll take care of it all." He demonstrated distrust, controlled her money, her time and her friends, and robbed her of her sense of self-worth. "It doesn't matter how intelligent or educated you are," Sara says. "It happens gradually and slyly. You internalize it all and before you know it you have no self-confidence left and you self-esteem is at an all time low."

What changed the trajectory of her life, significantly, was the help of a friend. "One day, my friend said to me, 'You know, Sara, this is abuse,'" Sara recalled. "That changed my life. That's when I started to see, and started the process of getting out."

Sara is not alone. She is in fact just one of tens of thousands of abused women in Israel and around the world who are stuck trying to figure their way out of abusive relationships. According to Haifa University, one in seven Israeli women are abused. In the United States, it's one in six. In Australia, studies show that one out of every four women will be in an abusive relationship at some point in her life.

Abuse takes many forms - physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, financial. Sara said she "only" suffered physical attacks twice in her marriage. But the emotional and verbal abuse takes its own toll, and is in some ways harder to heal, as well as to recognize. Mavoi Satum, the organization helping agunot that Sara cites as having helped her tremendously, has adapted some wonderful materials from Jewish Women International and the Crisis Center for Religious Women and made them available here.

"I think physical abuse is in some ways easier than emotional abuse," Sara once reflected. "If you look in the mirror and see a black eye, you can say, something is wrong. But with systematic emotional abuse, you sort of think, maybe I'm crazy."

One of the most trying aspects of Sara's story was the ex-husband's manipulations of the children, and phenomenon that is known as Parental Alienation Syndrome. This is where an abusive spouse verbally and emotionally manipulates children to despise the other parent. Sara suffered from this terribly, as she found her children keeping their distance from her. Her lawyer could not even fight this pattern, and tragically advised her to give up certain custody rights in exchange for her get.

To this day, even as she has rebuilt her life and worked on her relationships with her children, they are still somewhat under the husband's control, afraid of confronting or challenging him, unable to tell him no. Sara has yet to spend a weekend or holiday with her children.

Still, the children, like Sara, are healing. They all now see through the manipulations and are all working through the issues in their own ways. She has rebuilt a strong relationship with her children and is helping and supporting them, in their own processes of healing. They are lucky to have her.

"There are so many scars," she says. "It's not easy. But we're working on it, and thank God, there really are miracles."

Sara, an Anglo-Saxon, is now married to a man who she describes as "very sweet". "I did it right this time," she said. "There are a lot of men out there who are not nice to women. But I found one who is."

Sara is an amazing woman. Her wisdom, strength and goodness never faltered. I think about her often, and pray that more women find the ability to exit abusive relationships and rebuild their own sense of who they are. And I am reminded of the enormous power of women's friendships, of women supporting one another and being there for each other. This is how women are changing the world.