There is a particular kind of argument that does not merely disagree—it disqualifies.
It does not rebut—it brands.
And once you see its structure, you start to recognize it in places that, at first glance, seem completely unrelated.
In its most absolutist forms, contemporary anti-Israel activism operates on precisely this logic.
Label Israeli conduct as “genocide,” and the moral terrain instantly collapses: if genocide is occurring, then anyone who defends Israeli policy, or even refuses maximal condemnation, is no longer a participant in debate but an accomplice.
From there, escalation becomes self-justifying. Businesses, institutions, and individuals are swept into a widening circle of guilt, and retaliation—economic, reputational, even physical—is framed as morally warranted.
The same pattern has taken root in a very different arena: disputes over Jewish divorce.
Here too, a totalizing moral category is deployed. The term “agunah,” which in classical halacha refers to a highly specific and tragic case—a woman whose husband has disappeared or is otherwise unavailable through no fault of her own—is now often applied far more broadly.
In contentious divorces, women are frequently presumed to occupy this category by default, while husbands are cast as obstructive or abusive unless proven otherwise.
Once that framing is accepted, the rest follows with striking predictability.
Any attempt to raise procedural concerns—about due process, about forum selection, about the sequencing of religious and civil proceedings—is reframed as enabling abuse.
The accusation replaces the argument.
What makes this more than rhetoric is its intersection with state power.
New York Domestic Relations Law §253 conditions civil divorce on the removal of “barriers to remarriage,” effectively empowering courts to pressure compliance with religious divorce norms.
This represents an unconstitutional entanglement between state authority and religious practice.
More pointedly, from a halachic perspective, it raises the problem of coercion: a get compelled under external pressure may be considered a get me’useh—invalid under Jewish law.
This creates a paradox at the heart of the system. A legal mechanism designed to “free” women may, under traditional halachic analysis, produce divorces of questionable validity—raising serious downstream concerns about remarriage and lineage.
The institutional structure surrounding these cases deepens the controversy. Under Article 75 of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules, rabbinical courts such as the Beth Din of America can function within a legally recognized arbitration framework.
In principle, this provides an avenue for religious adjudication within a secular legal system.
In practice, it risks creating a feedback loop between civil courts and specific batei din, where decisions in one forum reinforce leverage in the other.
This relationship can produce structural bias.
Civil courts may defer, formally or informally, to outcomes shaped by particular rabbinical institutions, while those same institutions operate under intense communal pressure to prioritize one outcome above all: the immediate issuance of a get.
The result is not two independent systems but a coordinated one.
Within this framework we have the dynamics of the Kohn v. Stein case which has left Stein unfairly branded and defamed as a deserving pariah in the Jewish community.
Adeena Kohn initiated proceedings in civil court without prior filing in a beit din, despite the halachic prohibition of arkaot.
Only then was the religious forum invoked—not to adjudicate the full dispute, but to compel a get. She went to multiple Batei Din, landing on the Beis Din of America.
Keep in mind that Stein and Kohn were preparing a joint application for divorce in Canada before she filed. The application included partial custody for Stein. Normally, under Jewish law, they could have worked it out together then gone to the Montreal Beis Din to finalize.
Steins response to Kohn, which was appropriate, was to move the case fully to a neutral Beis Din.
In the context of Agunah “terrorism” and its propaganda, that move was delegitimized or ignored completely.
Social pressure escalated.
Public denunciations followed at all levels of the Jewish community.
His employment was allegedly threatened.
He was followed and reported on at his children’s school.
The parallels between Hamas terror-linked propaganda and intimidation campaigns and contemporary Agunah activism are clear: the fusion of moral absolutism with institutional power.
It is also important to state plainly what is often omitted in popular discourse: Under many halachic interpretations, a husband is not automatically obligated to grant a get on demand in every contested divorce scenario. There are conditions, processes, and reciprocal obligations. Ignoring that complexity in favor of a single moral narrative does not clarify the issue—it distorts it.
Even more troubling are instances in which so-called advocates and activists, in their urgency to resolve these cases, are willing to endorse actions that openly conflict with halacha itself. We’re not just talking about a campaign urging women to post nude photos, but an actual promotion of adultery (“open marriage”) by the wife. This is visible on the Instagram bio of Adina Sash, aka “FlatbushGirl.”
That move—abandoning the legal framework in the name of enforcing it—reveals how far moral panic can drift from principle.
None of this is to deny that real abuses exist. There are unquestionably cases in which men have weaponized the get to exert control, and those cases demand serious remedies.
But a system that treats every dispute as if it were that case risks becoming unjust in a different direction.
And that is the common thread.
In both geopolitical discourse and family law, the shift from argument to accusation—from complexity to moral absolutism—does more than inflame rhetoric.
It reorganizes institutions, redistributes power, and narrows the space in which truth can be pursued.
Once dissent is equated with complicity, the question is no longer who is right. The question is who is allowed to speak.
That is not justice. It is enforcement, and it is why campaigns like “Free Adeena” are as fake, corrupt and inverted as the truly genocidal chant “Free Palestine.”
Researched and written with the help of AI.
Writing by Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal 