Member-only story
Undercover in the Orthodox Underworld
Whenever the black dress came out, Jessica Weisman’s mother knew she was “going after the Jewish people again”
In the summer of 2013, a woman who called herself Rachel Marconi wept. She was an agunah, a chained wife, one of the many Orthodox Jewish women in the world whose husband withheld from her a get, the biblically mandated bill of divorce.
With Rabbi Martin Wolmark on speakerphone from New York, Rachel recounted how she lived piously but remained childless because her husband squandered their money, abandoned her, and refused to grant her a divorce. The inability to obtain a get is no mere inconvenience: A get-less woman cannot remarry within the faith, and any children she might have will not be considered Jewish.
“What is his name?” Wolmark asked.
“Alejandro Marconi,” said Rachel’s brother, Jonathan Miller, who sat with her in the New Jersey office as they spoke to Wolmark.
“Who?” Wolmark said. Marconi is not your typical Jewish name.
