You’re right. No one should ever take the Vaad HaBadchanim seriously.
We’re just frum Twitter clowns with a logo.
But this was never about whether people should take us seriously. It was about whether people should take an agunah seriously.
So why did we get involved?
🧵
In short?
Because Raphi is one of ours.
Not one of ours on the Vaad. One of ours on Frum Twitter.
That doesn't mean we protect him.
It means we're responsible to call him out.
If we only condemn strangers and enemies, then all moral clarity in the world is just performance.
For weeks, the Free Adeena campaign was playing out mostly off Twitter.
There were posts. Petitions. Protests. News coverage. A whole public campaign.
And for the most part, Raphi sat back and let it happen.
He was not really active here.
3/
Then, on Tuesday, May 12, Raphi came back into the conversation.
Not with an apology.
Not with a gett.
Not with a serious explanation.
He responded to @skjask by putting “agunah” in scare quotes and comparing the campaign to a “playbook.”
4/
That changed things.
Because now this was not just a campaign about some guy most of Frum Twitter did not know.
This was @ImrayPhee.
A guy who had been part of this place. A guy who had made people laugh here. A guy who had even made a FTOTY Elite 8.
5/
We knew who he was.
We knew who had just responded to Shoshanna.
And we knew that pretending not to know would be cowardly.
So we told Shoshanna who had responded to her.
And then we said something publicly.
6/
That is when we posted that putting “agunah” in quotes was belittling the agunah crisis. Because it was.
You can have grievances in a divorce. You can believe you were wronged.
You can think the campaign against you is unfair or even cruel.
But “agunah” is not a punchline.
7/
Here is the part some people do not want to hear:
We don't believe in just labeling people gett refusers just because one side says so.
Divorce cases are complicated. Custody fights are painful. People get hurt. More than one thing can be true.
That's why Beis Din matters.
8/
In this case, the BDA/Rav Willig seruv matters.
This is not “he said, she said, and Twitter picked a side.”
This is not “two complicated sides, so who are we to get involved?”
This is one side flagrantly ignoring Rabbanim and a Beis Din that we hold of and listen to.
9/
And because Beis Din only has so much actual coercive power, social pressure matters.
A seruv is not a magic wand.
If someone can ignore Beis Din, ignore Rabbanim, ignore communal norms, and still be treated like nothing happened, then the whole system becomes a joke.
10/
That's why public pressure has a place.
Not mob justice.
Not making up facts.
Not deciding that every accusation is automatically true.
But when a recognized Beis Din has spoken and someone keeps refusing, the community can say: no, you do not get to just move on.
11/
Here is the other part some people do not want to hear:
A lot of us do not think this case is simple.
A lot of us believe Raphi may have legitimate pain and may have been badly hurt in parts of the civil divorce process.
But none of that matters to the gett.
12/
A gett is not a custody tool.
A gett is not financial leverage.
A gett is not a negotiating chip.
A gett is not emotional revenge.
A gett is not something you hold back until you feel the world has finally agreed that you were the real victim.
13/
Even in a thought experiment where Adeena gave him everything he says he wants, there is no reason to assume that would give a gett.
Because when a gett becomes about spite, humiliation, control, or revenge, the “conditions” aren't really conditions anymore.
They're excuses.
That's why this matters.
Not because the Vaad has suddenly become a Sanhedrin.
Not because we think X is a Beis Din.
Not because we endorse tactics used by every person in the campaign.
We got involved because someone from our Frum Twitter world was and is doing something wrong.
And if we only call out strangers, what is the point?
It is very easy to dunk on people outside your circle.
It is much harder to say: this guy is funny, this guy is talented, this guy was part of our world, some of us liked him, and he is still wrong.
16/
That is also why we cared about the Beis Din confusion.
Once people started waving around documents and claiming Raphi was not really a gett refuser, we checked.
We confirmed that the Beis Din of America/Rav Willig document was real.
And we said so.
17/
Then came Mishpat HaTorah.
A “Beis Din” whose practical function here was not to get Adeena a gett, but to create fog.
To give people a rabbinic-looking PDF they could wave around and say, “See? Nothing to see here.”
18/
A real Beis Din brings clarity.
A sham Beis Din gives a gett refuser cover.
And in this case, Mishpat HaTorah was not solving the agunah crisis.
It was helping people pretend there was no agunah crisis.
19/
So yes, please, please, do not take the Vaad HaBadchanim seriously.
But take this seriously:
Raphi Stein should give Adeena Kohn a gett.
Not after another campaign.
Not after another legal theory.
Not after another fake procedural escape hatch.
Now.
20/20
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