The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA) is a New York-based nonprofit organization which advocates for the elimination of the infliction of abuse from the Jewish divorce process. The organization advocates on behalf of agunot and promotes the universal adoption of Jewish prenuptial agreements for the prevention of get-refusal (a get is a bill of Jewish divorce). Get-refusal is considered to be a form of domestic abuse. Rabbi Jeremy Stern is the Executive Director of the organization.
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History
ORA was founded in 2002 by a group of Yeshiva University students. Since then, the organization has resolved over 220 cases of get-refusal, and at any given time is actively involved in approximately 50 open agunah cases. In 2014, the Slingshot Guide named ORA as one of the most innovative nonprofit organizations in North America for its success in "advocating for vulnerable women and changing the conversation about divorce in the Orthodox community."
Advocacy efforts
ORA resolves cases of get-refusal by combining facilitation with advocacy. Their strategies may include "staging protests in front of a husband’s home and office, urging his community and synagogue to keep him out, raising awareness in the media and applying financial and legal pressure."
Israel Meir Kin
Israel Meir Kin has been refusing to issue his estranged wife, Lonna Kin, a get, for over 10 years, even though the couple has been civilly divorced for over seven years. On March 20, 2014, Israel Meir Kin married Daniela Barbosa, even though according to Jewish law he is still married to Lonna Kin. ORA organized a peaceful demonstration outside the wedding of Israel Meir Kin and Daniela Barbosa in Las Vegas, and the rally was covered on the front page of the New York Times as well as other newspapers. Despite all of the pressure, Israel Meir Kin has yet to issue Lonna a get.
Eli Shur (also known as Dovid Porat)
On October 21, 2015, ORA released a video which highlights the Get-refusal of Eli Shur. Dovid and Adina Porat were married in 1990 in Israel and have five children together. In 2007, Dovid moved out of the family's home in Israel, and in 2008 he fled from Israel to the United States and assumed the name Eli Shur. He has refused to give Adina a Get since that time. Eli Shur is currently living in Dayton Ohio, and ORA is planning a protest demonstration against his Get-refusal on November 8, 2015.
Media coverage
ORA's advocacy efforts on behalf of agunot have been covered by several major newspapers, including The New York Times, New York Post, Washington Post, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Fox News, New York Daily News, and The Huffington Post.
Educational initiatives
ORA's Agunah Prevention Initiative raises awareness in the Jewish community about the importance of signing the Jewish prenuptial agreement for the prevention of get-refusal. The tagline of their initiative is "friends don't let friends get married without the halachic prenup," and in November 2014 ORA released a video to promote that message. While there is no way to know definitively if Jewish prenuptial agreements are becoming more popular in the Orthodox world, Rabbi Shlomo Weissmann, Director of the Beth Din of America, stated that "anecdotally, there appears to have been a big increase in awareness and usage in the last few years."