It’s a movement to stop the schtup.
In a rare display of public protest, women in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community are railing against a traditional practice that makes it hard for married women to get a divorce– by going on a sex strike.
The collective action was sparked by the plight of Malky Berkowitz, an Orthodox woman in upstate New York whose husband has for years reportedly refused to grant her the religious document that would allow her to officially separate from him and remarry, according to organizer and influencer Adina Sash.
“It's been four years and they've been trying to help free Malky from the clutches of a very toxic relationship that has multiple levels of coercive control,” Sash said in an interview. And they approached me and they said, ‘We need you to come out loudly and we need you to raise awareness,’”
Sash is a self-proclaimed Orthodox feminist and activist based in Brooklyn who often speaks out on her Instagram account, Flatbushgirl. She said this is not the first time the community has rallied around an “agunah” — a woman “chained to a dead marriage” — with a public pressure campaign.
Berkowitz wasn't immediately available for comment.
In some cases, husbands can withhold that religious divorce document, called a ‘get,’ and wield it as a source of power over their wives. The get is a ceremonial document, often written in Aramaic, that is passed from a husband to his wife after a rabbinical court signs off on it.
A woman cannot enter a new relationship until she obtains that document – even if she is physically separated from her husband.
“I don't believe that the law of the get was created to hold women as property,” Sash said. “It's more about creating an intentionality about when men are leaving a relationship so that women are not left in a destitute status where they're abandoned by men.”
Still, Sash said there is plenty of room for improvement in the ancient system, which is largely governed by men.
But why target intimacy – a very private ritual, especially in Orthodox households – if divorce is the main issue?
Sash says Orthodox women can protest sex just by refusing to go to the mikvah – a religious bathhouse where women cleanse themselves after menstruation. If they don’t go, their husbands cannot be intimate with them.
She said this particular form of protest is a very effective way to get attention from men in the community, who primarily control the religious court that issues gets.
“They're saying, ‘You want me as your wife to partake in our physical intimacy union, then what are you doing to protect me from being the next agunah?” Sash said. “What are you doing to protect my sister?’”
While Sash noted that she can’t exactly “go into people’s bedrooms” to verify how many women have joined in the strike, she estimates that hundreds of women from Brooklyn to Kiryas Joel in Orange County are participating based on messages she’s received.
“I was speaking to a mikvah attendant who told me that she was actually shocked that she is seeing a decline in the number of women who are coming to her local mikvah, which is in a prominent Brooklyn neighborhood,” Sash said. “And I've been hearing from a lot of men who are very irritated about the fact that their wives are taking their sexual agency into their own hands.”
Sash said she is also “absolutely” taking part in the strike.
As the “Free Malky” campaign stretches into its ninth week, Sash said she’s also received plenty of angry messages from women who feel that the public display of refused affection threatens to dissolve the sanctity of the Jewish household.
Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a prominent community leader affiliated with Yeshiva University, even issued a statement on the subject, where he condoned “demonstrations in front of the home or place of employment” to pressure an unwilling husband to give his wife a get, but stopped short of approving the sex strike.
“To suggest such a tactic on a mass scale involving women and men who have no social relationship with the recalcitrant husband, is a recipe for disaster,” Schachter wrote in a letter viewed by Gothamist.
Sash said Berkowitz has yet to receive her get despite the publicity.
“I was really hopeful that her case would not take very long,” she said.
But after a long meeting with her husband’s family, Sash said not much progress has been made.
“I think the only difference is that we've created tremendous awareness for other women who identify with Malky's story, or who are frightened that they might be the next Malky or their daughter might be the next Malky,” she said.
Besides the online publicity and the protest activity in Brooklyn, community members in Kiryas Joel have been especially vocal about Berkowitz’s situation. They’ve held outdoor rallies, littered the ground with flyers, and even flew a plane with a banner reading “Free Malky” over the community.
“The parents were just forced to explain it to the children because the children didn't want to come from playing. And so many little girls who did not know what an agunah was or what a get was or what Malky’s story was all know about it,” Sash said.
