By MATTHEW WAGNER
A group of Orthodox women activists petitioned Labor party members Wednesday during elections to help alleviate the plight of agunot.
As Labor party members entered their Jerusalem headquarters to vote for the next Labor Prime Minister candidate, women from Yad Le'Isha, an Orthodox women's activist group that belongs to Rabbi Shlom Riskin's Ohr Torah Stone institutes, asked them to sign a petition to help agunot, women who are separated from their husbands but cannot, according to Jewish law, be remarried because their recalcitrant husband refuses to give a get [divorce certificate].
The petition is directed at Labor Minister-without-portfolio Haim Ramon, who sits on the state committee which chooses rabbinic judges.
Bat-Sheva Sherman, who heads Yad Le'Isha, said that she is trying to force Ramon to be faithful to his party's ideals of gender equality.
"We want Ramon to know there will be a political price to pay if he supports the wrong approach."