Nearly any Orthodox woman who has struggled with the process
of obtaining a halachic divorce from an uncooperative or vindictive husband in
the New York area has heard the name Mendel Epstein.
The 68-year old rabbi, who appears to have homes in
Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Lakewood, N.J., has been closely involved in the world
of agunot, or “chained women,” for some three decades, serving as a toen, the
halachic equivalent of a lawyer.
In an interview with the Five Towns Jewish Times last
summer, Rabbi Epstein said he was “disturbed by the number of women who find
themselves in unbearably difficult situations” in divorce proceedings. He
proposed a “bill of rights” for Jewish wives that includes, “A woman in an
abusive relationship has a right to seek a get.”
But according to the FBI, which rounded up Rabbi Epstein and
nine other men in an alleged interstate abduction ring last week and raided
several homes and a Monsey yeshiva, his methods of persuading husbands to come
around ran afoul of the law, if not halacha, and could land him and his
associates in federal prison.
“I always knew he is a vigilante operating in system similar
to the Wild West,” said Rivka Haut, a longtime activist on behalf of agunot who
has known the rabbi for years, but said she had no direct knowledge of any
abductions.
However, she said that women in such situations frequently
asked her advice about pursuing such extreme measures. Haut, a co-founder of
the advocacy group Agunah, Inc., says she has always counseled people to steer
clear of violence or illegal schemes.
“Most of these women had to leave the marriage not because
they want to go live with someone else, but because they married someone with
serious problems,” Haut said. “Usually, they are desperate to be halachically
released.”
According to the FBI, there are plenty of area women
desperate enough to go through with illegal means.
The complaint by New Jersey
U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, which was obtained by The Jewish Week,
says
Rabbi Epstein boasted to undercover agents that he carried out batei din, or
rabbinical courts, to authorize the use of force, followed by abductions and
coerced divorces on a regular basis “every year … year and a half” for an
unspecified time period.
Fishman told The New York Times that two dozen husbands in
divorce cases have been identified who may have been abducted from New York and
taken to New Jersey to be roughed up by the defendants.
A message left at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home was not
returned as of Tuesday afternoon. A number listed for Mendel Epstein in
Lakewood appeared to be connected to a fax machine. Attempts to identify a
lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.
The Asbury Park Press, citing an unnamed source, reported on
Oct. 11 that the investigation was directly related to a similar ongoing case
involving an Orthodox couple from Lakewood, David and Judy Wax, who were
charged in 2011 with abducting an Israeli man to force him to grant a get. That
case is still pending. More arrests related to both cases will be forthcoming,
the source told Asbury Park Press.
The FBI investigation originated in August and spanned until
Oct. 7, when agents, including two posing as an agunah and her brother
apprehended the defendants in a warehouse in Middlesex County, N.J. The fake
scheme involved luring a supposed husband from New York City.
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