Why Iraqis Reject the Palestinian Cause
When they think of Islam, they think of Baghdad, not Jerusalem.
September 30, 2021
Chaim Grade’s Tale of a Chained Woman Illuminates Pious Jews as Real People
The dramas of Vilna in the 1920s are not so far removed from the dramas an Orthodox rabbi’s wife sees playing out in the 2020s.
In Jewish law, an agunah—literally, a chained woman—is one whose husband has disappeared or deserted her, or simply refuses to make a de-facto divorce official, leaving her unable to remarry. Such a woman, named Merl, is the subject of the great Yiddish novelist Chaim Grade’s The Agunah. Like many Jewish women after World War I, Merl’s husband was conscripted into the army and never returned; the plot revolves around her quest to find a rabbi who will declare him dead so she can begin a new life with the man she loves—and the impact the case has on the Jews of Vilna. Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt writes:
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Chaim Grade’s Tale of a Chained Woman Illuminates Pious Jews as Real People
The dramas of Vilna in the 1920s are not so far removed from the dramas an Orthodox rabbi’s wife sees playing out in the 2020s.