Huge protest by Flatbush Girl in Kiryas Joel to free Malky a Agunah

Huge protest by Flatbush Girl in Kiryas Joel to free Malky a Agunah, was met with much backlash from the community with a counter protest

[@JackRapiport]

No need to do this, shes ok, live and kicking, what's the big rush?

[@avkar1112]

משוגעים

[@JustAGal15]

Hell yeah

[@mitchl.7276]

I don’t get what’s going on

[@Jennifer-cl1cl]

This is a protest in the Hasidic religious community in New York. Malky is a married woman who is trying to obtain a religious divorce, called a "get", from her husband - her husband is refusing to grant her the religious divorce. Men must grant the divorce to their wife before she can remarry, and life in a religious community like this one can be complicated for single adults - not to mention that this woman is quite unhappy in her marriage and just wants to move on with her life. In theory, there are ways that religious authorities can compel a man to issue the get, but in practice it's next to impossible to do that. The religious authorities of the community have already issued a religious judgement against the man for refusing the divorce - that's supposed to cause someone enough shame and social opprobrium that they comply with what the rabbi is telling them to do. But in this case, it just isn't working. So poor Malky has been stuck in this in-between state for years now. The purpose of the protest is to raise awareness in the community about Malky's situation, and to increase the social pressure on her husband to give her the divorce she wants. Sadly, the husband has a number of supporters in the community - a bunch of misguided men who think they know better than their own religious authorities in this matter, which is a pretty shameful level of arrogance for them to display. If this is confusing, it might help to remember that this is about a religious divorce, not a civil divorce. Malky could have a civil marriage with anybody she wanted to. It's just that until she gets the religious divorce, her community won't recognize her as being free to remarry. A big part of her religious community is behaving in a completely shameful manner toward her, but she is still a religious Jew and doesn't want to leave the community that forms the foundation of her religious practice. Every community and every religion has its share of jerks, I suppose. Jews aren't any different from other people in this respect.