A New Approach to Jewish Divorce

Abstract

The traditional Jewish law of divorce, which permits a husband to divorce his wife, but does not sanction the wife's divorcing him, has created hardship for Jewish women for centuries. In view of the new attitudes toward the equality of women, the rabbis of the Reconstructionist Movement in Judaism have innovated an egalitarian get (divorce), a bold effort to prevent Jewish women from becoming agunot (abandoned wives.) By means of the new type of divorce, the Jewish woman takes the initiative and divorces the husband.