Paris – As the bodies of several passengers who were aboard an Air France plane which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris last week were recovered over the weekend, the Jewish community in the French town of Boulogne-Billancourt began a halachic debate over the fate of one of its member, who is believed to have died in the crash.
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The debate was sparked ahead of a memorial ceremony held by the family of Shlomo Anidjar, who was aboard the missing plane, and focused on determining his wife’s personal status.
During the ceremony, held at Paris’ Great Synagogue, Anidjar’s children asked to cite the Kaddish Yatom prayer (“orphan’s Kaddish”) for their father, and undertook mourning customs – together with their mother.
France’s rabbis objected to these signs of mourning expressed soon after the plane went missing, even before the plane’s debris or passengers’ bodies were recovered, and threatened to boycott the ceremony.
The rabbis expressed their fear that taking part in the memorial would be perceived as a rabbinical-halachic approval that the woman is a widow, while she is in fact considered an aguna (abandoned wife).
Following the disagreement, Rabbi Yirmiyahu Menachem Cohen, a senior member of the Rabbinical Center of Europe, decided to convene Paris’ rabbinical court to discuss the matter.
The judges rules that before undertaking the mourning customs the family should have ensured that the chances of finding survivors were down to zero, but that in this case, retroactively, mourning could be allowed.
The court based its ruling on the initial opinion of aviation experts, who ruled that the plane had exploded in the air after measuring the radius where the plane’s debris were found.
The halachic ruling also relied on a response written in the past by Rabbi Ovadia Yosed in regards to a combat pilot whose plane was hit by a missile and fell into the sea. Rabbi Yosed had said at the time that the explosion of a plane and drowning in the sea were two scenarios which a person could scarcely escape from alive, and that joined together, there was a halachic foundation to release the wife from her aguna status.
According to this precedent, the judges ruled that the woman and her children could undertake the mourning customs, as the woman was expected to be recognized as widow in the future.
They stressed, however, that she would not be allowed to remarry before a thorough discussion was held on her personal status.
Is he dead or isn’t he dead, that is the question. It cant be both.
The France flight 447 was a tragedy already! It’s magnitude is compounded by the fact that there were Jews aboard. Truly Tragic!
Baruch Dayan HaEmes.
Hashem, we understand this is Your will.
We grieve and accept.
We know You will protect the widow and orphans.
We love You and want to be with You.
of course hes dead did you read the artical
I hope yhey find his body & he recieves a kevuras yisroel. Remember this has thecomplications of mayim shein lohem sof, however if the plane actually exploded in mid aie. I guess as a loshon hora blogger I am no posek anyway.
Hamokoim Yenocheim eschem.
Let’s get it right. “Agunah” does not mean abandoned – it means chained. Abandonment is an act of the husband. To be chained is an act of the Rabbis. It’s very easy to be a machmir. Let’s see the Rabbis show some rachmanus for the living.
hi they shouldve been quickly sensitive to the needs of the family to mourn
People, there are Rabbonim and Dayonim involved here. Let them with their Da’as Torah bring forth their p’sak. Let’s not try to speculate in this regard.
The Rabbonim Shlit”a are B”H very competent and knowledgeable in the Halochos and their intricacies.
This has been a great loss for the family, the community and klal yisroel, please let’s not compound the pain with our uneducated speculations.
They should declare him dead because the bodies that they did find were in such bad condition that they do not want to describe even on the internet or in the newspapers!! They could have been shark bait!! Do you expect to find them then??
Debate? Quick, someone give them a newspaper to read.
IT is a terrible tragedy that all those people died. They should not compound the problem for her and make this into a an additional pain.
Why don’t they decide the question we all see every day. How about all those bums who refuse to give their wives divorces? Those guys usually are holding out, just to be offered money by the wife’s family and that is not a Torah reason. Also, some of them can’t deal with the fact that treated their wives like garbage and now suddenly they want to treat them like queens. No, no, very often these guys want to get together again for the main purpose of revenge.
“How dare you want to leave me, a big and wonderful tzadik like me; I’m going to now make your life miserable for shaming me in the eyes of the community.”
Why don’t the rabbis want to deal with that huge controversy????
They are recovering bodies daily now. She’s not ready to get remarried. It’s all a moot point for now. Be mispallel that they find his body fast.
Its true that the Rabbonim try to look for Heterim is such cases.
Bu if you look at the Responsa after WWII you will see that very very few Rabbonim have the ‘Wide Shoulders’ to really be Matir.
It takes a real Godol with a great heart to take it on his responsibility for a Heter. Even the last case in Mumbai proved this ‘tragic’ situation in the Rabbonim circles.Only Rav Wosner had the power and courage to be Matir the Agunah. The others seem to evade taking a positive stand on such matters.
We are missing the greetnss and leadership in todays Rabbonim.
Wow. I’m shocked Milhouse didn’t have something nasty to say about Comment 2 – apparently this crash might actually be considered a tragedy even in his always correct mind.
An aircraft crashing (C”V) at 200 mph into the ocean would hit with a deceleration of approximately 180Gs over 50 milliseconds. Safety regulations allow a deceleration of 20 Gs over 10 milliseconds for crash safety to protect against brain and aortic injury (which incidentally is much more than astronauts take during launching). I’d hope that this simple bit of math would help the rabbis pasken that assuming the poor husband was on the plane, he passed away instantly at impact.
A yashar koach to Milhouse (#21) for correctly exposing the fraud of most of the so-called “agunos” today. Just because a woman is involved in a nasty divorce conflict in no way confers on her the status of “agunah”.
If a wife has been mosering her husband in non-Jewish courts, a typical situation nowadays, she is most likely a “moredes” and certainly not an “agunah”. The word “moredes” seems to be a banned word in the vocabulary of the politically correct “agunot” activists.
The true facts of the so-called “agunot” problem are simply too painful and inconvenient to be discussed by Mr. Avrohom Abba (#12) and his feminist fellow travelers.
In many cases of so-called “agunot”, the husbands are not asking for ANY money for a GET, but they are asking to be reimbursed for the legitimate damages they have suffered while being mosered for years in non-Jewish courts.
A while back when a young man was missing in the Toronto waters after a boating mishap a SEGULA came forth of Rabanim going out in a boat and putting pieces of bread on the water. Shortly thereafter the body rose above the surface, enabling Kever Yisroel. Perhaps the same Segula can be used in this case.
no he is definately alive……you see just as the plane exploded in mid air he jumped out and swam to one of the nearby islands and is awaiting rescue.
there have been horror stories of agunahs husbands turning up even when 100% cast iron certain witnesses saw them dead or killed. especially after the holocaust. habias corpus is a nighmare so they must wait until all bodies havbe been accounted for or chas vesholom discounted.
Let these Rabbi’s act like Rabbonim and make a decision. If we know for sure he was on the plane and we know for sure that there were no survivors then make a p’sak. Don’t torture this family and don’t add to their tzar.
just wait and see if the body shows up
Let’s get something clear. Ruling if this woman is an agunah or not is not just tied into her ability to remarried. She is at least partially hindered from the greiving process while this decision is (I hate to say) still in the air.
The reality, if you have been reading the news on this plane incident-which I have, is grim. The plane flew directly into a tropical storm over the middle of the ocean. They have mentioned that the plane seems to have broken up in the air and then crashed. They have mentioned that maybe the plane was struck by lightning. If someone was still alive *in* the ocean, they likely would have been struck by lightning or drowned.
Incidentally, these comments about how he may be alive are kind of disgusting. #36 Yitzhok, you suppose that he got off the plane while it was in the air? That is what it sounds like.
Let me close by saying that this is such an unfortunate tradgedy. I sincerely hope that Hashem should comfort this woman and the children, as well as the man’s other relatives, friends and co-workers.
To be matir an aguna is a very serious thing. You can be sure that the Rabbanim want just as much as anyone to finalize her status and allow her to mourn and remarry. But they must do their due diligence according to Halacha. If a someone is declared dead, and his wife remarries, and then he turns up alive (it has happened in some fascinating cases) then the children are Mamzerim. It is worse for everyone. Let them do their job and leave out the peanut gallery comments. There is a reason whey THEY are in their position and not you.
There is a 1931 Tshuva from a Roov in Burlington Vermount that mattirred an Agunah whose husband was lost on the titanic. I don’t recall the name of the sefer, but he was very creative getting around the “Mayim sheain la’hem sof” problem. I think it is relavent here as well. Found it. sefer Bais Yaakov lirav Yaakov Meskin. Link here:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/2709