Writing by Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal

Posted with the permission of Mr. Lowy.

“FAIK” is a term referring to the Fake Agunah Industrial Komplex.

A real “agunah” in Jewish law is a woman whose husband has disappeared due to no fault of his wife, and the wife wants him back. Automatically categorizing every woman in a divorce conflict as an “agunah” and a victim of her husband is feminist propaganda designed to deflect attention from any misconduct by the wife.

In many fake agunah cases today, the same pattern repeats itself:

1. A wife files divorce litigation in family court without permission from a halachic Bais Din and without halachic justification to force divorce on her husband.
2. The children are intentionally alienated from their fathers by the wife and/or prevented from seeing their fathers.
3. The husband’s property and/or income is seized by the wife in family court, in direct violation of the Biblical commandment לֹ֣א תִגְזֹ֑ל
   “you shall not rob” (Lev. 19:13).
4. The wife summons the husband to a feminist “Bais Din” (where women are not held responsible for their misconduct) solely for the purpose of forcing a Get from the husband.
5. The husband, as defendant, wisely summons the wife to a non-feminist Hareidi type Bais Din which will hold both the wife and husband responsible for misconduct and will require that the whole divorce case be adjudicated by Torah halacha before any Get is done.
6. The FAIK feminist mob are horrified at the notion of women being held responsible for their actions in a non-feminist Bais Din, and strong pressure is applied to the wife to prevent her from appearing at the non-feminist Bais Din.
7. The wife’s feminist Bais Din denounce the non-feminist Bais Din as “inappropriate, corrupt, misogynist etc”, therefore the wife is exempted from appearing at the non-feminist Bais Din.
8. A fake “seruv” is issued against the husband by the feminist Bais Din which may also issue a fake “halachic” order that the husband deliver a Get (as the feminist Bais Din does not have jurisdiction over that husband).
9. The FAIK propaganda machine roars into action all over social media denouncing the husband as an alleged “Get refuser” when in fact the husband never refused to deliver a Get, and it is the wife who is the self-chained Get refuser. Feminist grifters and activists, and white knight men join a social media lynch mob against the husband, destroying his reputation, banning him from synagogues, and possibly getting him fired from his job and evicted from his apartment. Feminist street mobs may be mobilized to publicly harass the husband and his relatives, and publicly harass the non-feminist Bais Din. Leftist anti-Semitic non-Jewish media may be invited to report on the street protests and denounce Judaism as “misogynist”.
10. The wife is obligated by halacha to appear before the husband’s Bais Din, but she never appears and a valid Get cannot be delivered, thus FAIK has created another self-chained fake agunah who can be recruited into the FAIK mobs.

Anyone who really cares about women in divorce conflicts should avoid providing any support for the FAIK mob who only serve to incite conflict and chain the women. Those who really care about women in divorce conflicts should influence the women and their husbands to make maximum efforts to save their marriage, and as a last resort, only pursue halachically valid divorce procedures such as mediation or submitting the case to a non-feminist Bais Din.