The Agunah Crisis: New Opportunities to Solve an Old Problem
Issues addressed include the prenuptial agreement, including the unique Canadian legal issues; the role of the rabbi, community, and social pressure in helping agunot; new halachic approaches; educational initiatives; current status of problem in israel and North America; civil marriage as an option; the methodology of the Rabbinical Courts and the qualifying characteristics of a candidate for the position of a dayan in the State Rabbinical Courts; the relationship between get refusal and domestic abuse.
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Meet the speakers
Rabbi Jeremy Stern
Rabbi Jeremy Stern is the Executive Director of ORA, Organization for the Resolution of Agunot. ORA is a not-for-profit organization which assists divorcing couples in resolving contested Jewish divorces in a timely fashion and in accordance with the highest standards of Jewish law. ORA facilitates open communication to arrive at quick and amicable resolutions to contested divorces. Since its founding in 2002, ORA has assisted in the resolution of over 170 disputed divorce cases. We are currently working on 70 open cases.…
Rabbi Shlomo Weissmann
Rabbi Shlomo Weissmann is the Director of the Beth Din of America. Rabbi Weissmann received rabbinical ordination from RIETS in 2001 and advanced rabbinical ordination (Yadin Yadin) in 2014. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Prior to his association with the Beth Din of America, Rabbi Weissmann worked as an attorney at several prominent law firms, including Debevoise and Plimpton LLP.
Rachel Levmore
As an active Rabbinical Court Advocate since 1995, Rachel Levmore has specialized in cases of Iggun and Get-Refusal heard by the Israeli Rabbinical Courts. In January 2000 she became the first woman to join the "Agunot Unit" in the Directorate of the Israeli Rabbinical Courts. She is the Coordinator for Matters of Iggun and Get-Refusal, in a Council of Young Israel Rabbis project sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel. In that capacity she has helped hundreds of women attain their freedom from the untenable…
Justice Sharon Shore
Sharon Shore is a partner at Epstein Cole with a focus on family law. She has worked on cases at all levels of court in Ontario, including the Court of Appeal. Sharon has authored and co-authored several articles on family law issues and has given lectures on a variety of family law related topics. She was an instructor for the Family Law Section of the Bar Admission Course for the Law Society of Upper Canada. Sharon also sat on the Advisory…