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Esther and Other Captive Women

JL;DR SUMMARY Reexamining the Book of Esther reveals compelling parallels to the plight of agunot—Jewish women chained to unhappy marriages, unable to divorce due to their husbands' refusal to grant a get. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish LawMarriageHistorical ContextCaptivityFreedomEstherGetCoercive ControlAgunahRabbinic Courts

Places mentioned

Israel
"Fustat official to send a letter to a beit din in Palestine pressuring her husband to either return to her or give her a get."
Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg, Germany
"From Frankfurt an der Oder in 1792, we meet the agunah Frida daughter of Mechel who reached out to her dear friend Yakev for help."
Italy
"Chiara, daughter of Abram Salom, had such a powerful prenup in seventeenth century Italy that when her husband violated their agreement and married a second wife in Cairo."
Cairo, Egypt
"agreement and married a second wife in Cairo, she sued him in Venetian court and had his assets seized and reappropriated to her."
This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 85034
Cairo Source ID 11
Retrieved 2026-06-17 05:41:10 UTC
Curated 2026-06-17 08:30:49 UTC