Physical Description:

4 letters of 4 pp. each, 196:124 mm., by Rabbi and one by the women, Ashkenazic script on stationary, signed in ink and dated.

Detailed Description:   

Letters by R. Israel Lewandersztejn (d.1943) rabbi on Indura, Belarus on the status of an Agunah. He perished in the Holocaust.

An agunah is a married woman who for whatsoever reason is separated from her husband and cannot remarry, either because she cannot obtain a divorce from him , or because it is unknown whether he is still alive. The term is also applied to a yevamah ("a levirate widow"; if she cannot obtain halizah from the levir or if it is unknown whether he is still alive (Git. 26b, 33a; Yev. 94a; and Posekim). The problem of the agunah is one of the most complex in halakhic discussions and is treated in great detail in halakhic literature (no less than six volumes of Oẓar ha-Posekim are devoted to it. The halakhah prescribes that a marriage can only be dissolved by divorce or the death of either spouse. According to Jewish law, divorce is effected not by decree of the court, but by the parties themselves, i.e., by the husband's delivery of a get ("bill of divorce") to his wife. Hence the absence of the husband or his willful refusal to deliver the get precludes any possibility of a divorce. Similarly the mere disappearance of the husband, where there is no proof of his death, is not sufficient for a declaration by the court to the effect that a wife is a widow and her marriage thus dissolved. In most cases of agunot the question is whether or not the husband is still alive. Such cases result, for instance, from uncertainty about the husband's fate caused by conditions of war.

References:   

Ozer haRabonim #