New York divorce coercion gang
If the circumstances truly warrant a divorce, and the husband is unwilling, a dayan (rabbinic judge) has the prerogative of instituting community shunning measures to "coerce him until he agrees", with physical force reserved only for the rarest of cases.
[2][3][4] It was in this gray area of halakha (Jewish law) that in the mid-1980s, a rabbi from Brooklyn, New York, Mendel Epstein, began to advocate for women seeking religious divorces from their husbands.
[5] Dubbed "The Prodfather" by the press, due to his boast of using a cattle prod against his victims, Epstein coerced these men to divorce their wives through the use of violence.
"[8] On October 23, 1996, while he was walking from the synagogue to his home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, Abraham Rubin was shoved into a van by three masked men, beaten, and shocked with a stun-gun more than 30 times, including in his genitals, until he agreed to give his wife a get.
[7] In the following year, Rubin filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against Epstein and a conspirator, Martin Wolmark, head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah of Rockland on West Carlton Road in Suffern, New York.
Newsday interviewed an additional dozen residents of Borough Park and Midwood, Brooklyn, all of whom claimed that they were harassed, threatened, or assaulted by men working for their estranged wives.
[11] On December 1, 2009, Israel Markowitz was lured from Brooklyn to Lakewood Township, New Jersey, under the pretense of receiving employment at a document shredding establishment.
[15] On October 16, 2010, Yisrael Bryskman, an Israeli citizen, was lured from New York to the Lakewood home of David Wax, an accomplice of Epstein, where he was promised employment as a typist of Talmudic texts.
[11] Wax was paid $100,000 from the wife's family for the document, half of which went to Epstein, and he attempted to extort an additional $50,000[12] from Bryskman's father in Israel over the phone, threatening that if he didn't comply, he'd receive a "special gift — it's called a bullet ... in your head".
[20] In the summer of 2013, an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent dialed Martin Wolmark,[21] and told him her husband refused to give her a get.
[21] Epstein later said he needed $10,000 to approve the coercion at the beth din, and $60,000 for the "tough guys" who would use karate,[5] rope, a screwdriver, and plastic bags over the men's heads to get them to co-operate.
[23] On September 29, Epstein drove from New York across state lines to a warehouse in Edison, New Jersey to stake out the location and verify that it was appropriate to stage a kidnapping and beating there.
Four days later, he drove to Suffern to meet with the female agent and Wolmark, who convened the beth din that, in exchange for the fee, would declare that the "husband" is required to divorce his "wife".
[28] Sholom Shuchat, who had pleaded guilty in June to travelling in inter-state commerce to commit violence, was sentenced on November 19 to time served and two years of supervised release, with the first six months being house arrest.
Wolfson said during the proceeding that "No one is permitted to commit acts of violence against another" and that the sentence was necessary to deter others in the Jewish community from engaging in similar paid vigilantism.
[35] Epstein launched a number of defense arguments to the court, ranging from warrant issues to jury questions, but the heart of the appeal focused on the propriety of their actions under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, saying the FBI sting interfered with their practice of religion.
"[37] Moshe David Tendler, rabbi and professor of medical ethics at Yeshiva University, said, "The idea that a beth din can issue an order for coercion is baloney, a hoax."
[8] Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, the executive director of Agudath Israel of America, stated that Wolmark's court didn't hear what defense might be offered by the husband who was allegedly refusing to grant the get.
