Meir Kin, an orthodox Jew who has been legally divorced from his first wife, Lonna Kin for more than 7 years just married his second wife, Daniella Barbosa last week. What’s unusual about this situation is that Mr. Kin has refused to grant his first wife a “get,” which is the term used for a document required by Orthodox Jewish law to end a marriage. It’s like an annulment if you are Catholic. Without the get, his first wife is not free to marry again. So how is it that he is? Apparently, 100 rabbis need to give special permission for this to happen, and Mr. Kin claims to have gotten that.
Of course, his second wedding drew a number of protesters, including several Orthodox rabbis. They feel he is using and corrupting the law and are even doubtful he got 100 of their own to sign off for him. You may be wondering why Mr. Kin would go to all that trouble to hang on to the first wife while marrying another. Apparently his ex owns a successful company and makes more than he does- a lot more. So he is demanding 500,000 and full custody of their 12 year old son in exchange for granting the get.
As you may imagine, this story drew a lot of attention when covered by The New York Times. It hit the most emailed and read list for good reason. New York is rich with successful, professional women- and has a strong Jewish population, many of whom lean more to the left (religiously speaking anyway) than Mr. Kin. These women are in an uproar, orthodox women and men are not happy about it either- and almost everyone is condemning his behavior. In the past, husbands who refused gets were isolated by the community. There have even been cases where they were kidnapped and tortured in order to persuade them to free their ex-wives to move on and marry again. However, shunning doesn’t work as well anymore and kidnapping and torture carry a heavy sentence.
So what is the first Mrs. Kin to do? She could convert to Conservative Judaism, hire a hit man or just decide to live in sin if she meets a great guy. Whatever her decision may eventually be, the great majority of Jews and non-Jews, women and men, will stand behind her. After all, slavery is out of style- and few people would support a law that gives all the power to one partner, especially one that wants to have his wedding cake and eat it twice.
You can read the full story here
