Dr. Rachel Levmore speaks at IRF

The International Rabbinic Fellowship annual conference was held in the Young Israel of  Sharon Massachusetts. The director of the IYIM Agunah and Get-Refusal Prevention Project, Dr. Rachel Levmore, was invited to speak before the American rabbis so that they could learn from her experience and solutions. Dr. Levmore made two presentations – both of which brought about practical results.

In the first session she participated in a panel discussion on Jewish Marriage and Divorce, together with Blu Greenberg and Rabbi Aryeh Klapper of the Boston Beth Din. Dr. Levmore presented the relatively new phenomenon of private marriages in Israel according to the halakha, many time with the officiating of those IRF rabbis. She explained the legal, halakhic and spiritual affects that these marriages have on the individual couple and on Israeli society to a depth previously unknown to the rabbis.

In her second presentation, Dr. Levmore gave an hour’s lecture on “An Analytical Blueprint of Solutions to the Agunah Problem” with an emphasis on practical solutions which can be undertaken in the US. As a result of her lecture a motion was made by a member of the IRF that the IRF should pass a resolution that all member rabbis must insure that all couples they marry sign the Tripartite Agreement for the prevention of the agunah.