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Rachel Stomel 🎗️ Profile picture
Rachel Stomel 🎗️
@RStomel
Activist, translator, artist, spoken word poet, purveyor of niche Jewish jokes. English Communications Director for @cwjisrael Center for Women's Justice
Nov 14, 2023 • 13 tweets • 1 min read
Antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred. So passe! Instead, try one of these newer, hipper -semitisms!
A thread🧵: Rantysemitism—The beloved pastime of launching long tirades about Jewy things. See: Jews
Jan 10, 2023 • 38 tweets • 18 min read
The inaugural meeting for the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women and Gender Equality at the Knesset. Wish us luck—we’re going to need it. Rachel Stomel standing in front of the sign that says “Com @cwjisrael Committee chair @pnina_tamano_sh opens the meeting saying it's a difficult time, but she will work with anyone who she needs to in order to promote our interests in this government.
Jan 4, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
People have no idea how much the mamzer problem in Israel is civil and not [merely] religious. One current case we are fighting at @cwjisrael has played out *entirely* in the secular arena--the family court, the population authority & social services. Not the rabbinic court.🧵1/8 2/ No rabbinic court and no rabbi has investigated--nor needed to investigate--this child's status. Never once have any of these aforementioned civil bodies referred the case to a religious authority. Yet they use the specter of religious stigma to limit the child's civil rights.
Dec 20, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
From a friend, recalling her kallah classes (shared with her permsission):
"...the one time they mentioned morning sickness it was to reinforce the sick mother-to-be's obligations to her husband as a sexual outlet. >>
1/3 'No matter how sick you feel you need to be available to your husband for intimacy. Even if it means bringing a shissel (like a small bowl or bucket) into your room near the side of your bed so you can turn your head and throw up in middle.'
2/3
Dec 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Yes. This is one of the reasons why the @cwjisrael halachic prenup does not mandate marriage counseling as a prerequisite to enforcing the prenup, like some other halachic prenups do. The Tzohar prenup makes marriage counseling a prerequisite in their prenup. The Agreement for Mutual Respect also used to, but they changed it to an optional clause a few months ago.
Nov 2, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
One day, we will be ready to have the discussion about abolition, emancipation and manumission in the context of women in Jewish marriage. Much of the current discussion focuses on manumission--the man voluntarily setting his wife free--as the ideal outcome. Is this really our best aspiration?
Sep 2, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
There was a case in Israel like this about 10 years ago-- a guy married a woman for the purposes of extorting her for a get. He fled to America the day after the wedding (using plane tix he bought pre-wedding) and then told her his price of 40,000 shekels for a get. > The Israeli Rabbinic Court told her that she needed to pay him the price he wanted (otherwise, it would be a "forced get"). She was 19, had no money, & was now an agunah after 1 day of "marriage." She launched a crowdfunding campaign. More hurdles along the way. Long story short>
Aug 31, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Anything at all, if you’re a woman in many Orthodox shuls! Thankfully, my current shul allows women to speak and I’ve done it twice—once a couple weeks ago, when I led an interactive shiur about mamzerut, and two years ago, when my husband and I gave a joint drasha for our anniversary
Aug 26, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
The reason it’s considered “for the child’s own good” to list an ex-husband—who is not the child’s biological father—as the child’s legal father has to do with halachic principles that, originally, were beneficial but today can be harmful. Here’s how: A mamzer is a product of a biblically forbidden relationship—either certain forms of incest or a married woman’s affair (but not a married man’s affair). It is a devastating stigma: a mamzer cannot marry within “the congregation of God” ie other Jews (except mamzerim & converts)
Aug 26, 2021 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
Picture this: You leave an abusive relationship, get divorced, and a few years later, remarry and have a baby. But in the hospital, to your horror, when they write down the baby's legal details, they insist on recording your ex as the baby's father, for the baby's "own good."
🧵> This is the story of one of our clients, including testimony in her own words from a speech she gave in the Knesset a few years ago, with the hopes of shedding light on a problem that few people understand. Names and details have been changed to protect her identity.
2/
Jun 2, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Note that this monthly fine was approved by the same R Lau who opposes all halachic prenups, which work by requiring the recalcitrant party to pay the other a monthly sum until the get is given.
What’s the difference here? >> 1) Well, with a halachic prenup, both men and women can use it to extract themselves from get refusal; here, the beit din will only levy fines on a woman but never on a man (because of the concern of a “forced get”)

And
Jun 1, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Female converts having to dunk in a mikveh in the presence of three men. To be clear, my beef here is with rabbis who insist they must be in the room the whole time watching.
Jun 24, 2020 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
#DidYouKnow that we once had a client who was stuck as an agunah, though her husband had died, because she could not perform halitza with her brother-in-law since his foot had been amputated due to diabetes complications? Learn more about this story and other cases of halitza in this episode of @cwjisrael’s Hebrew podcast!
יבום וחליצה 2020 במדינת ישראל - זה קורה גם היום
cwjpodcast.libsyn.com/episode--2020
Mar 8, 2020 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Buckle up and get your barf bags ready, because it's time for another episode of #RealStoriesFromTheRabbinicCourt, #InternationalWomensDay2020 & #AgunahDay edition. This morning, the State Rabbinic Court published a new decision (by the Petach Tikvah Rabbinic Court, 4.3.20):
1/x Case details: A young woman married 3 years ago. Shortly after the wedding, she discovered that her husband was schizophrenic and had actively hidden that fact from her—as well as from their matchmaker and rabbis—before the wedding.
2/x
Jan 20, 2020 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Today’s edition of #RealStoriesFromTheRabbinicCourt:

No one should have to “earn” their freedom by suffering violence. That the rabbinic court—essentially, the state—is using its authority to perpetuate this is violence on an institutionalized scale.

Thread:
1/ A woman flees home following a violent outburst by her husband and his threat to murder her. She requests a divorce. The rabbinic court rules: This is only the first incidence of violence and therefore, she has no grounds for divorce.
2/
Jan 7, 2020 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
Today's edition of #RealStoriesFromTheRabbinicCourt:

Cavalier cruelty, all in a day's work.
Thread about a client from @cwjisrael:
1/ 2/
 This past Sunday, after five hours of hearings—during which a @cwjisrael client caved to all kinds of extortion, like waiving child support, in order to receive her get—we sat with her in the hall and waited to be called back in for the get ceremony.
Dec 18, 2019 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
Today's edition of #RealStoriesFromTheRabbinicCourt:

There are so many questions here--ethical, moral, religious, legal. But even without all of those, the cruelty and disregard for this woman and her agency over her own life is just shocking. @cwjisrael
Thread:
1/ @cwjisrael 2/
A woman came into our @cwjisrael office with an ultimatum given to her by her estranged husband, who has been refusing to give her a get (Jewish bill of divorce) for the past two years.
What price has he set for her freedom?
May 21, 2019 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Wow. This one checks all the boxes:
☑ rejecting grounds that might free an agunah
☑ finding creative ways to declare a convicted pedophile kosher
☑ prioritizing their own monopoly over actual lives
☑ rejecting grounds to clear a baby's mamzer status
ynet.co.il/articles/0,734… It is mind boggling to me that they go to such extreme, creative lengths to find a way to declare the convicted pedophile "not a rasha" and therefore a kosher wedding witness in order to keep this longtime-agunah's marriage intact and to make sure her child is a mamzer. Wow.