Activist Adina Sash, known by her social media handle Flatbush Girl, called for a sex strike to free agunot on Thursday night. In a letter titled “Proper and Improper Agunah Activism,” Schachter wrote that Jews are obligated to make significant efforts and exert social pressure on husbands who refuse to provide a get – a religious divorce – to their wives, leaving them agunot (“chained” women) unable to be remarried.
“Mitzvah night is canceled,” Sash wrote on Instagram. “Withholding a get is ok but withholding relations is not? Men can’t go one night without intimacy but Agunos can wait for years?”
Sash called the strike in support of Malky Berkowitz, whose husband Volvy has been denying her a get. Sash welcomed Schachter’s statement and religious opinion, which she said showed he had no tolerance for the “Aguna crisis” and encouraged peaceful demonstrations and significant social pressure against the get denier.
“This is a huge win for agunot and aguna advocates,” said Sash.
Schachter cited the Gemara (Nedarim 15b, 81b), which he said makes it “problematic” for a husband or wife to make vows limiting intimacy, which is expected as part of a healthy marriage.
“The idea that withholding intimacy from one’s spouse to coerce them into doing something, even for the most noteworthy of causes, is not something that should be taken lightly,” said Schachter. “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.”
The rabbi said that the mass action could affect many relationships and lead to halachic and traditional violations.
Sachter's concern at strikes
Schachter did acknowledge that in rare circumstances women who were part of a get-refuser’s “small tight-knit community” have succeeded in obtaining the issuance of divorce by refusing to take ritual baths. According to Jewish law (Halacha), marital relations cannot occur while a woman is on her period. Once it ends, she must immerse herself in a mikvah to be able to have sex again with her husband.
Schachter expressed concern that the strikes were seeking to encourage rabbis to “come up with a solution that frees all” agunot worldwide.
“Rabbis are meant to interpret Halacha (Jewish religious law), not to make changes to the Torah that Hashem (God) has given us,” Schachter wrote. “Any rabbi who would issue a psak halacha (religious ruling) based on societal pressure is not being loyal to the halachic process that Hashem has given us.”
Sash said that Schachter had set an important precedent allowing for the rare application of the tactic of ritual bath refusal in “small tight-knit communities,” to act against a get-refuser. Sash argued that social media communities were included under the definition of such a community. She suggested that Schachter wasn’t aware of the scope of the impact of social media communities in the real world and the extent of the crisis of get-refusal.
The activist said that in some Jewish sects, the women and “agunot in waiting” of the community were not able to engage in the protest because of the lack of bodily autonomy, and they needed outside assistance.
Sash said that Schachter’s concerns that women were making temporary vows of celibacy were unfounded, as they were not making vows, they were saying that they did not feel in the mood to have sex when they felt that they and their daughters were threatened.
The activist also addressed criticisms that the protesters were denying sex publicly, but she noted that the get-refusers were also not operating privately – They were making public appearances in Jewish communal places.
Sash cited ancient Jewish scholar Shimon ben Lakish when noting that women shouldn’t have intercourse in times of famine and hunger, which she interpreted as major crises, and Jewish women were facing a systemic crisis.
Schachter’s worry that rabbis would be issuing religious opinions out of social pressure was problematic according to Sash, as the Yeshiva University rabbi was himself not issuing his statement in a vacuum, but in response to societal issues.
Writer and Podcaster Rabbi David Bashevkin also expressed his concerns about a sex strike on Wednesday, as it would create more broken relationships.
“Using intimacy as a point of leverage for social protest is unwise and downright dangerous,” Bashevkin said on X. “This is a communal issue that needs communal coordination and buy-in.”
Bashevkin advocated for religious prenups as an effective solution to get-refusal. Sash also embraced the halachic prenups, but said that for many religious circles, the option still did not exist.
He said that Sash’s work on behalf of chained women still had to be appreciated, noting that she had helped secure the get for a woman, Esther Eisenmann-Lauber, who had been denied for 6 years.
“Appreciate her resilience and commitment to this effort,” said Bashevkin.