Orthodox ‘Chained Wife’ Launches Social Media Battle for ‘Get’ Religious Divorce
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
An Orthodox Jewish woman in New York has launched a campaign on social media to force her husband to give her a religious divorce.
Friends of Rivky Stein, 24, of Brooklyn, launched a Facebook page earlier this month calling on her common-law husband, Yoel Weiss, 31, to grant her the get. Stein married Weiss in a religious ceremony six years ago shortly after she turned 18; the couple never filed for a civil marriage certificate.
Stein alleges in documents posted on the Facebook page and on a website on behalf of her case that Weiss physically abused her, raped her and kept her under surveillance. Weiss denies he abused Stein, who left her husband two years ago.
She said in a statement on her website that she is being evicted from her basement apartment in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn as a result of threats made by Weiss against her landlord.
Stein told the New York Daily News in an interview that she recently turned to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office in an effort to have Weiss criminally charged.
Weiss told the Daily News that he will give his estranged wife a get once they work out custody of their two children in family court.
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