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The Litigious Gerusha: Jewish women and divorce inimperial RussiaChaeRan Y. Freeze aa Brandeis University , USAPublished online: 19 Oct 2007.

To cite this article: ChaeRan Y. Freeze (1997) The Litigious Gerusha: Jewish women and divorce in imperial Russia ,Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 25:1, 89-101, DOI: 10.1080/00905999708408491

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Nationalities Papers, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1997

THE LITIGIOUS GERUSHA: JEWISH WOMEN ANDDIVORCE IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA*

ChaeRan Y. Freeze

When Ita Myshkind learned that her hushand had remarried before delivering theofficial get (bill of divorcement), she filed criminal charges against him in state court."My husband," she claimed, "Wishing to use my capital and valuable possessions,married me with the premeditated intention of divorcing me."1 She complained thata few months after their marriage, he deserted her and married a certain DveiraRafaelovich; and it was only after this blatant violation of the law that her husbandhastily drew up the get2 without any rabbinic supervision. Efroim Myshkind,however, sharply contested his wife's account, asserting that he had sent a messengerto deliver the writ of divorce in the presence of two witnesses. "It is not at alldifficult for a Jew to divorce his wife," he wrote, "especially if she does not have agood reputation like Ita Kreines [here he used her maiden name], who spent an entireyear abroad with different acquaintances."3 But at the trial, the husband failed toprove that the get had satisfied all the requirements of Jewish law, much less that hiswife had actually received the document. More important in the state's view, he hadviolated Russian civil law, which required a "spiritual authority" (in this case, a staterabbi) to supervise the divorce procedure.4 In October 1884, the Minsk courtconvicted the husband of bigamy and sentenced him to five months and ten days inprison.5

Although Ita Myshkind did not achieve all her objectives (namely, forcing herhusband to divorce his second wife),6 she did prevail on two important issues:securing material support and ensuring that her husband would not go unpunished forhis crime. That a provincial Jewish woman could utilize the Russian legal system toobtain justice raises two important questions: first, when and why did some womenbegin to resort to the state; and second, how effective were their efforts and what wasthe impact on Jewish women and their society as a whole?

The subject of Russian Jewish women and divorce has received little if anyattention in the historiography: apart from a small number of studies on the EastEuropean Jewish family, historians have all but ignored the less familiar figures likethe widow, the single mother, the convert and, of course, the gerusha (the divorcedwoman).7 This lacuna is all the more surprising when one considers the high divorcerate among Jews in Imperial Russia—indeed, the highest in the empire. In thetown of Berdichev (Kiev province) alone, Jews reported astounding rates of

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292.69 divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1866, as opposed to 1.43 divorces per 1,000marriages among the Russian Orthodox throughout the entire empire.8 This articleexamines one voice of dissent that rejected traditional means of redressing maritalinjustice; in contravention of community norms, some Jewish women turned to theRussian state to voice their grievances and to demand justice.9 They summoned localpolice to bring their husbands to court, sent petitions to provincial governors, andeven traveled to St. Petersburg to press their claims. Interference of the governmentin private marital disputes not only violated the prerogatives of Jewish religiousauthorities but also abetted state intrusion into the domain of the Jewish family. Until1917, the state empowered each religious confession to deal independently withquestions of marriage and divorce. However, by the late nineteenth century, it hadbegun to question—in practice, violate—that autonomy.10 Growing state involve-ment in marital conflicts, in other words, had larger implications: it threatened todestroy this final bastion of Jewish autonomy.

To address the issue of the litigious gerusha, this article draws primarily onRussian and Ukrainian archival materials, above all, the files of the RabbinicCommission at the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg.11 In 1848, thestate established this Commission as a consultative body under the Ministry ofInternal Affairs (MVD), based on the model of the religious consistories in France.12

Its primary functions were to regulate Jewish rituals, to examine divorce cases, toadvise rabbis regarding ambiguous religious and state laws, and, finally, to adjudicatecharges brought against local rabbis for unjust decisions in divorce cases. Despite thestate's grandiose plans to "bring order" to the Jewish family and religious life, it onlyconvened this assembly six times between 1852 and 1910 to examine a total of 104cases.13 Of these, eighty-one cases pertained directly to problems of marriage anddivorce: twenty-one were brought forth by the state {e.g., questions from provincialgovernors, state courts about Jewish divorce, remarriage, halitsah and so forth) andseven by local state rabbis regarding the application of Jewish law to various divorcecases. The remaining fifty-three cases were filed by individual Jews throughout theRussian empire: of these, thirty-six were initiated by Jewish women, fifteen by men,and two by both spouses. Given the fact that only a small percentage of petitions everreached their intended destination due to the overburdened Russian bureaucracy, theactual number of petitions to the Rabbinic Commission is unknown.14 These archivalcases do not carry any claim to being "representative"; by their very nature, they areunique and personal. But even extraordinary and sensational cases are highlyrevealing, for they provide a unique insight into the divisive, sensitive, and unre-solved issues of Jewish society. Moreover, they are cut from the fabric of Jewishmores and values, institutions and law; litigants refer to accepted norms as their pointof reference and speak in the idiom of their culture. And, because their casesreceived widespread publicity (in journals, newspapers), they were highly influentialamong contemporaries, configuring the values and expectations of men and es-pecially women throughout the Jewish community. The broad range of petitions used

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in this paper will reveal a variety of experiences and difficulties faced by Jewishwomen in divorce litigation.

II

There were three reasons why Jewish women turned to the state to settle divorcecases: (1) new opportunities under the new Russian judicial system and a growing"legal consciousness" among Jewish women; (2) problems of enforcement astraditional communal control over individuals weakened; and (3) unjust divorcesettlements imposed on women by rabbinic authorities.15

Prior to the judicial reform of 1864, litigation through state courts was extremelyslow, expensive and arduous. The absence of lawyers and juries often resulted inarbitrary rulings that were based solely on written reports of the local police. Oneobserver remarked that the capricious judicial system in Russia "resembled a lake inthe depth of which great fish devoured the smaller ones, while near the surface,everything was calm and glistened like a mirror."16 The reforms of 1864 sought tomake radical changes and drew heavily on West European models.17 The framers ofthe reforms not only sought to eliminate excesses in the court system but also to"generate a sense of law in the minds of the public" and to dissipate the belief thatthe law was the enemy.18 While not all cases received expeditious resolutions, thereforms of the 1860s did much to curtail corruption, red-tape, and procrastination. Itwas also accessible to ordinary provincial women, not only in formal rights, but alsoin costs.19

One indicator of the growing "legal consciousness" among Jewish women was thesharp increase in the number of cases they submitted to the new courts. By the early1870s, thousands of Jewish women resorted to state courts to settle a host ofdisputes:20 domestic servants sued their employers for unpaid services;21 widowsfought avaricious relatives seeking to deprive them of their inheritance.22 The suitsranged from the mundane (such as, complaints against tailors for ruining clothes)23

to the monstrous (accusations of rape).24 The court experience not only taught Jewishwomen their legal rights but demonstrated that they were no longer powerless tocombat abusive employers, family members, and outright criminals. The fact thatmany domestic servants who filed suit against their employers lived on the samestreet, or at least in close proximity, suggests that women learned from each otherabout their legal privileges and how to make effective use of the court system.25

Another sign of women's cognizance of the law was their written inquiries to theRussian-Jewish press regarding issues about their status and legal rights. These wereoften published in the iuridicheskii otdel, or legal section, of newspapers such asRassvet ("Dawn"), Budushchnost' ("The Future"), and Novyi Put' ("The NewWay"). For example, one woman submitted a query regarding the residence rights ofa divorcde who formerly possessed the privilege to live outside the Pale of Settle-ment because of her father's status as a soldier, but lost it when she married an

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individual who did not have this right. In other words, could she regain her formerstatus now that she was divorced?26 A widow whose recently deceased husband hadworked for twenty years outside the Pale requested legal advice regarding her rightto work as an artisan in his place.27 In response to another frequently asked question,the editor of Khronika voskhoda replied, "We would like to clarify the fact thatwomen, who have the independent right of residence outside the Pale of Settlement[for example, as midwives or women feldshers], can keep their children withthem—sons, until they come of age, and daughters, until they marry. This right ofthe mother has now been legally recognized by the State Senate."28 In the majorityof these inquiries, women sought to protect themselves from expulsion or denial oftheir right to work outside the Pale of Settlement by arming themselves with a basicunderstanding of the legal codes that pertained directly to them.

The fact that many, if not most, Jewish women declined to seek state assistancein marital disputes reveals that domestic strife still remained within the confines ofthe Jewish community. As one anthropologist put it, "Evidence of [family] dissen-sion to get abroad was a disgrace and there was a horror of being shamed."29

Still, some Jewish women did turn to the secular state and did so for specificreasons. Most had already resorted to conventional means, such as interrupting asynagogue service or requesting a rabbi to summon a bet-din (rabbinical court) todiscuss their plight. But in the end, they resorted to the tsarist state as a last recourse.One motive was difficulties in "enforcement"—that is, forcing men to obey rabbini-cal or communal decisions. This ensued partly from state policy itself (prohibitionsagainst traditional Jewish methods of communal control) and partly from theincreasing geographic mobility among Jews. In the first case, the state severelypunished anyone who employed "fines, herems or expulsions from the community"against insubordinate individuals.30 The only means of enforcement at their disposalwas through "persuasion and exhortation," which had scant effect on obduratehusbands.31 Thus, when the second-guild merchant Abram Sagal deserted his wifeand infant son without support in Kharkov, Sura Sagal's father turned to thegovernor of Poltava for assistance.32 The exasperated father explained that he hadfiled suit in Jewish rabbinical court, however, the rabbis were unable to force Sagalto return to his wife, let alone mandate alimony and child support payments. Oneletter from the governor to the police chief in the husband's home town ofKremenchug settled the matter. The police arrested him on the street and forced himto pay the amount decreed by the bet-din, in addition to the court fees incurred byhis wife's family. In this case, the use of state intimidation was the only effectivemeans of enforcing the rabbinical court's decisions.

The second reason, geographic mobility—which increased sharply in the secondhalf of the nineteenth century—meant that Jews often moved away from theircommunities, making it difficult for rabbis to exert moral or communal pressure onindividuals.33 In the above case, the merchant Abram Sagal simply ignored theverdict of the bet-din and moved to another province with the belief that he could

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avoid support payments altogether. Archival records show that migrant workers,merchants and soldiers all too often failed to send sufficient support to their divorcedwives and children or deserted their families altogether.34

Jewish women also turned to the state to overturn unjust divorces by official staterabbis. By the mid-1830s, a dual rabbinate—the state rabbi (kazennyi ravvin) and thespiritual rabbi (dukhovnyi ravvin)—emerged in Jewish communities as a result ofstate efforts to regulate and institutionalize the Jewish family.35 The state rabbi,versed in Russian law and language, had the sole legal right—in the state's eyes—tooversee Jewish marriages, divorces, circumcisions, and the maintenance of officialregisters.36 Archival documents indicate that by the late 1870s, state rabbis wereoften Russified Jewish professionals (doctors and dentists) who were enticed by theincentives of the new post (such as, the status of a first-guild merchant, medals, andexemption from the poll tax).37 In general, Jews viewed them as "petty stateofficials" and not as legitimate religious authorities; hence, they continued to turn totheir local spiritual rabbi to resolve family and marital issues.38 Still, for some Jewishmen it was advantageous to exploit the services of state rabbis, who often had anelite Russian education but scant knowledge of Jewish law.

The state rabbi's deficient understanding of Jewish divorce laws often led toserious misapplication of the most basic principles. One such case arose in 1895,when the assistant state rabbi Shalashvilli of Kutai (Georgia) presided over thedivorce of Rivka Adzhiashvili and her husband.39 Following their marriage in diewife's home village of Kulash, the couple moved to the husband's home town. Butwhen the homesick wife returned to her parents' village against her husband'swishes, he asked the local rabbi Shalashvili for a divorce. Based on his understandingof Shulhan Arukh (a codex of Jewish law),40 the rabbi declared the wife a moredet(a rebellious wife) and made a public announcement to that effect in local syna-gogues and prayer-houses for four consecutive weeks. But rather than give her anopportunity to return or to defend her side, the rabbi granted the divorce in absentia.When the defiant wife appealed to the provincial governor, the provincial state rabbiReuden supported the woman's petition and declared the divorce illegal. He arguedthat, according to Jewish law, a wife betrothed and married in her parents' home wasnot obliged to move to her husband's place of residence. Even in the case of themoredet, he pointed out, after her second warning she loses her alimony and "theydo not give her a divorce for twelve months."41 "It is evident that the local rabbi doesnot have an adequate understanding of Jewish law," maintained rabbi Reuden, "andI am persuaded that in the event that he is summoned to Kutai, [I will] invite himpersonally and explain Jewish law to him."42 The governor concurred and orderedRabbi Shalashvili to reexamine the case.

Another ground for complaint by Jewish women was the tendency of state rabbisto issue divorces outside their legal jurisdiction. When local rabbis refused todissolve Abram Malamud's marriage, he turned to an obliging rabbi in Nikolaev.43

It was no coincidence that the husband turned to Rabbi Lev Kagan for assistance;

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this state rabbi in Nikolaev had a notorious reputation among local clients for hiscasual disposition to perform illegal Jewish ceremonies. Indeed, he even had theaudacity to advertise himself in posters, pamphlets and local newspapers such asOdesskaia novosti ("Odessa News") and Novoe obozrenia: ("The New Review"), asfollows: "The Chancellery of the Varvarov and New Odessa rabbi L. A. Kagan willbe open from 9:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. and 5:00-7:00 in the evenings. Calling hours areavailable daily except for Saturdays."44 In this case, Malka Malamud, a resident ofOdessa, then received a summons from the state rabbi to appear before a rabbiniccourt for a divorce hearing in the town of Gorev. The rabbi warned her that if shefailed to appear, the decision would be made in her absence. After she complainedto state authorities, an investigation revealed that the state rabbi had indeed exceededhis jurisdiction. To deal with rabbis like Kagan, whose single source of legitimacystemmed from the state, women found it most effective to report them over to thevery government to which they were accountable.45

Finally, Jewish women filed suit against both spiritual and state rabbis whodivorced them against their will or by coercion.46 These cases illustrate why Jewishwomen—who were completely at the mercy of those who held authority over theinterpretation of Jewish law—resorted to "outside" assistance. In 1904, Khaia Gillerfiled suit against her husband and a Warsaw rabbi for divorcing her against her willand knowledge based on the grounds that she was a rebellious wife. She explainedthat for ten years she had lived in harmony with her husband until he moved toWarsaw "to augment his income."47 At first, he sent adequate support for his wifeand five children but soon reduced these payments. According to the wife, he"became completely indifferent to me and the family and decided to marry anotherwoman." When Giller refused his offer of 2,000 rubles for a peaceful settlement, heinduced the rabbi in Warsaw to issue the divorce without her consent.48 In a letterto the wife's brother, Rabbi Kraminka explained that he had dissolved the marriagebased on the signed statement of one hundred spiritual rabbis who had concurred thatGiller was indeed a moredet and permitted the husband to remarry.49 But was thisreally a case about a rebellious wife or a husband who just wanted to get rid of hisspouse? And who were the "hundred spiritual rabbis" who decided her fate? In histestimony, the Warsaw rabbi admitted that the wife had come to the city to live withher husband, but within a few weeks had fled with all her possessions to her in-law'shome. When he ordered her to return to her husband, she protested that "she couldnot return to her husband anymore because he would murder her at night and she wasafraid."50 Ignoring her claims of spousal abuse he dismissed her pleas and upheld thedivorce.51 The governor of Vil'na, however, was sympathetic to her case and sent areport to the Ministry of Internal Affairs about her poor material condition and needto amend the situation.

In another case, Gitlia Kramer filed a suit against her husband in a Volyhnia statecourt for divorcing her against her will based on his accusation that she did notobserve Jewish laws of niddah (menstruation).52 Aware that it was not competent to

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deal with Jewish divorce suits, the court consulted with the local Starokonstantinrabbi—the very rabbi who had granted the divorce in the first place. In her appealto the Rabbinic Commission, Kramer complained that the court had been misguidedby the Starokonstantin rabbi, "who was one of the primary guilty persons in theunjust dissolution of her marriage."53 In most cases of coerced divorce that camebefore the Rabbinic Commission, Jewish women often faced similar obstacles,because the very men who decided their fates were also called by the state as thefinal authorities on Jewish law.

Ill

Although Jewish women who turned to the state did not always prevail, their effortsreveal much about their perceptions of the state and of themselves. Instead oftolerating unjust decisions by rabbinic authorities or maltreatment from their hus-bands, some voiced their grievances and demanded swift resolutions and retribution.As one woman declared to the Rabbinic Commission about her coerced divorce,"This procedure is only valid for whores and I refused to accept [it]."54 The vastmajority of women's petitions to the state expressed confidence in the state'sprotective and mediatory powers. They often addressed the state as a guardian andtheir last source of hope; common were phrases such as "... thus, I come under yourprotection," or "I implore you to take mercy on me, an unfortunate and unhappywoman."55 To be sure, some women may have utilized this rhetoric simply to "win"their case, but the very fact that they expended so much time, effort, and moneyindicated a certain belief in the system.

In many instances, members of the community supported the petitions of Jewishwomen to the state. In the Gitlia Kramer case mentioned above, the residents ofStarokonstantin sent a letter of support to the Rabbinic Commission with numeroussignatures (in Yiddish) praising her good moral character and denouncing herhusband's evil intentions.56 In another case, a group of prominent first guildmerchants from the Rossien community sent a petition to the MVD on behalf of onewoman whose husband had deserted her without providing support payments.57

These cases reinforced the state's inclination to intercede in Jewish, especiallyfamily affairs. In 1882, the Editing Committee, which convened to draft a new civilcode for the empire, proposed to transfer all Jewish divorce cases to civil courts.58

Based on its examination of Rabbinic Commission and other records, the Committeerecommended that the law abolish the right of a Jewish or Muslim husband "todivorce his wife unilaterally because this right corresponds neither to the contempor-ary position of women nor to the equality of rights of both spouses."59 It alsoprovided more lenient solutions to the problem of the agunah ("anchored woman")and halitsah (levirite divorce).60 These radical proposals not only threatened the finalbastion of Jewish autonomy but also the traditional Jewish family itself. Although theJewish women who filed petitions to the Rabbinic Commission probably did not

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intend to make a "revolution" in Russian civil law, their plight evoked sympathyamong Russian jurists who were sensitized to the divorce question in Russiansociety. It is ironic that the state which denied civil and political emancipation toJews as a corporate group, acted to free Jewish women from what they viewed asoppressive Jewish family laws. Equally paradoxical, for all the state's efforts to"integrate" the Jews into its general civil order through coercion and compulsion(cantonist system, Russification through education, conversion—all directed chieflyat Jewish males), it was "internal family disputes" which prompted the litigiousgerusha to voluntarily resort to and depend on the state—actions with deepramifications for both Jewish women and their society.

NOTES

* This paper, which was presented in an earlier version at a conference of the Association forJewish Studies, has been made possible through generous grants from the Memorial Foundationfor Jewish Culture, the Tauber Institution for the Study of European Jewry, the Sachar Committee,and the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. I am grateful tothe staff of the Russian and Ukrainian archives and libraries for their assistance and kindness.

1. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv [hereafter RGIA], fond 821, opis 9, delo 13,list 1-1 ob., god 1884. Petition of Minsk meshchanka (townswoman) Ita Ioselevaia Myshkind(2 July 1884). The standard Russian archival notation will be used hereafter: f. (fond), op.(opis'), g. (god), d. dd. (delo, dela), I. II. (list, listy), ob. (oborot).

2. The get or sefer keritut (literally, "a bill of excision,") was the bill of divorcement that ahusband gave to his wife to finalize the divorce in accordance with all the requirements ofJewish law.

3. Ibid., 1. 10-10 ob. Letter of Minsk meshchanin (townsman) Efroim Myshkind to the Ministryof the Interior regarding his appeal to the Senate (10 August 1884).

4. According to state law, "marriages and divorces which are not performed by state rabbis ortheir assistants will be considered illegal." Since Efroim Myshkind admitted that his divorcehad not been supervised or recorded in the metrical book of divorce by the state rabbi ofMinsk, the state considered the act null and void. See V. O. Levanda, Polnyi khronologich-eskii sbomik zakonov i polozhenii kasaiushchikhsia evreev (St. Petersburg: Tipografii K. V.Trubnikov, 1874), p. 800. See also Rabbi N. Gershengorn, "K voprosu o evreiskikhmetricheskikh knigakh," Khronika voskhoda, Nos 1-2, 1899, pp. 7-8.

5. For a debate in the Jewish press about bigamy in Russia, see Beniamin Shvaitser,"Dopuskaet-li iudaizm i zhelaiut-li evrei mnogozhenstva?" Vestnik russkikh evreev. No. 24,1871, pp. 741-742; idem., No. 25, 1871, pp. 775-777; la. Gal'perin, "K voprosu omnogozhenstve u evreev," Rassvet, No. 5, 1879, pp. 183-188; M. Lilienblium, "Dozvolenoili nedozvoleno mnogozhenstvo po evreiskim religioznym postanovleniiam," Rassvet, No. 13,1879, pp. 297^199; Isidor Gol'dberg, Russkii evrei, No. 10, 5 March 1880, pp. 362-369;Hamelits, No. 7, 24 January 1886, pp. 104-105.

6. Although Efroim Myshkind appealed to the Rabbinic Commission in St. Petersburg tooverturn the verdict, the latter upheld the local court's decision. It based its decision on theso-called "ban of Rabbi Gershom of Mayence" (960-1028), who allegedly pronounced anofficial interdict on bigamy among the Jews and decreed that a man cannot divorce his wifeagainst her will. See RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 291, 1. 53-83 ob., Journal of the RabbinicCommission 1893. For more on this "ban" see Ze'ev Falk, Jewish Matrimonial Law in the

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Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966). Regarding the wife's complaint thather husband continued "to cohabit illegally with Dveira Rafaelovich and their illegitimatechildren," the Commission ruled that although his second marriage was illegal in Jewish law,it could not invalidate this union. (Although it referred to the response of Ezekiel Landau,Noda bi-yehudah, Even Haezer, No. 2, "Shlichut be-get," the passage did not contain thisargument.) Furthermore, since the Commission did not have the right to coerce the husbandto divorce his second wife (as Ita Myshkind demanded), the Commission advised the husbandto prepare another get for his first wife so that she had the option to remarry. If the wiferefused to accept the divorce, it obliged the husband to pay alimony -- the amount to bedecided by a local rabbinical court.

7. For groundbreaking research on Jewish marriages in Poland and tsarist Russia, see: JacobGoldberg, "Die Ehe bei den Juden Polens im 18. Jahrhundert," Jahrbucher fur GeschichteOsteuropas, No. 31, 1983, pp. 481-515; Shaul Stampfer, "Ha-mashmaut ha-hevratit shelnisu'ei boser be- mizrah Eiropa," in Ezra Mendelsohn and Chone Shmerukeds, eds., Studieson Polish Jewry. Paul Glikson Memorial Volume (Jerusalem, 1987); Jacob Katz, "Family,Kinship and Marriage Among Ashkenazim in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century", JewishJournal of Sociology, Vol. 1, 1959; Immanuel Etkes, Lita Be-Yerushalayim (Chapter Three"Bein mishpahah le-vein limud Torah") (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1991), pp. 63-84.On Jewish childhood in Eastern Europe and the psychological trauma of early marriages inJewish enlightenment literature, see David Biale, "Eros and Enlightenment: Love AgainstMarriage in the East European Jewish Enlightenment," Polin, No. 1, 1986, pp. 59-67. ForJewish women's education and marital patterns, see Shaul Stampfer "Gender Differentiationand Education of the Jewish woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe," Polin, No. 7,1992, pp. 63-87; idem, "L'amour et la famille chez les Juifs d'Europe orientale à l'époquemoderne," in Shmuel Trigano, ed., La Société Juive á trovers l'histiore (Paris: LibrairieArthème Fayard, 1992). Other works on the Jewish family include Mark Zborowski andElizabeth Herzog, Life is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York: InternationalUniversities Press, Inc., 1965); Sydney Stahl Weinberg, The World of our Mothers (NewYork, 1990).

8. RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 458,1. 26, g. 1866. For statistics on Jewish divorce, see also f. 821,op. 8, dd. 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 489, 490, 492. For comparativeRussian Orthodox divorce statistics, see Wagner, Marriage, Property and Law in LateImperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 70. In 1914, when the divorcerate reached its highest level among the Russian Orthodox, the rate was only 4.20 divorcesper 1,000 marriages or 3,714 divorces to 884,476 marriages.

9. Jewish women were not the only ones who resorted to the government; Russian peasant andnoblewomen also increasingly turned to state courts and administrative institutions (e.g., theSenate and His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery for the Receipt of Petitions) starting in theperiod of the Great Reforms. See Beatrice Farnsworth, "The Litigious Daughter-in-Law:Family Relations in Rural Russia in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century," SlavicReview, Vol. 45, No. 1, Spring 1986, pp. 49-64.

10. Polnoe sobranie zakonov [henceforth PSZ] No. 10, p. 90. See also RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 17.11. RGIA, f. 821 (Departament Dukhovnyikh Del Inostranikh Ispovedanii, Ministerstvo Vnutren-

nikh Del). It also draws on materials from various central and local archival depositories inUkraine: Tsentralnyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, Kiev (TsGIA); Tsentralnyi gosu-darstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, L'vov (TsGIA-L); Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Kiev oblasti(GAKO); Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Zhitomir oblasti (GAZhO); Gosudarstvennyi arkhivOdessa oblasti (GAOO); Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Kharkov oblasti (GAKhO); and finally,Kiev gorodskoi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv (KGGA).

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12. RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 283, 1. 2-5 ob. (a report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reportregarding the education of members of the Rabbinic Commission); f. 821, op. 8, d. 293, 1.147-215, 301-371 (history of the Rabbinic Commission). See also.M. Kreps, "RawinskaiaKomissia," Evreiskaia entsikolopedia ([reprint] St. Petersburg: Obshchestva dlia nauchnykhevreiskikh izdanii i izdatel'stva Brokgauz-Efron, 1991), pp. 223-238.

13. The Rabbinic Commission met in 1852, 1857, 1861, 1879, 1893 and 1910. The members ofthe first four meetings were mainly merchants and state rabbis. In the election of 1893 and1910, Orthodox rabbis such as Tsvi Hirsh Rabinovich (son of Rabbi Itshak Elkhanan Spektorof Kovno), Khaim Soloveichik, Tsaddik Sholom Shneerson of Liubavich and other so-called"spiritual rabbis" captured the majority of the seats on the rabbinic commission. For more onthe composition of the Rabbinic Commission, see M. Kreps, "Rawinskaia Komissia,"Evreiskaia entsiklopedia, No. 13, pp. 234-238. For responses of the Jewish press to the"coup" of the Orthodox camp in the Commission, see VI. Temkin, "O rawinskoi komissii,"Rassvet, No. 5, 1910, pp. 3-5; Davidson, A. "Klerikal'noe dvizhenie," Rassvet, No. 13, 1910,pp. 4-6.

14. For statistics on the number of civil cases submitted and heard by district courts, courtsappeals, the Civil Cassation Department of the Senate and the Imperial Chancellery for theReceipt of Petitions, see William G. Wagner, Marriage, Property and Law in Late ImperialRussia, pp. 49-51, 90-91.

15. The fifteen cases filed by Jewish men reveal that they shared similar concerns as womenabout marital dissolution but had different objectives and interests. Several suits dealt withhusbands who refused to return a wife's dowry and provide support payments. For examplessee RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 356 (Aingorn vs. Aingorn) and d. 357 (Sagal vs. Sagal). Onehusband even sought to abandon his status as a Russian subject to avoid alimony and childsupport payments (RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 361 Izrail'son vs. Izrailson). Other suits involvedcomplex questions about marriages and divorces that violated Jewish law. Iudelia Katz filedsuit to prevent his son and daughter-in-law from remarrying after their divorce, which wasprohibited by Jewish law because the son was a "Cohen." Also see RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d.296,1. 52-54. Some men filed suit against rabbis who rejected petitions to divorce their wiveson the grounds of insanity, childlessness, desertion, and so forth. For examples, see: RGIA,f. 821, op. 1. d, 366 (Kissin vs. Kissin); d. 37 (Budgar vs. Sevastopol rabbi); d. 56 (Oselkavs. Rabbi Berger).

16. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change inImperial Russia (Dekalb, 1990), p. 170.

17. The reformed court system in Imperial Russia consisted of a four-tiered structure: (1) thedistrict (uezd) courts for minor cases; (2) the district (okrug) courts for more weighty civiland criminal cases; (3) the court of appeals (sudebnaia palata); and (4) the Civil OT CriminalCassation Department of the Senate which represented the highest court of appeals. TheSenate sometimes transferred "Jewish cases" dealing with religious issues to the RabbinicCommission. For more on the new court system, see J. W. Atwell, "The Russian Jury," Slavicand East European Review, No. 53, 1975, pp. 44-61; T. S. Pearson, "Russian Law andRussian Justice: Activity and Problems of the Russian Justices of the Peace, 1865-1889,"Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, No. 32, 1984, pp. 52-71; Richard Wortman, TheDevelopment of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago, 1876).

18. Lincoln, The Great Reforms, p. 261.19. For example, Ita Myshkind's initial petition to the court cost 80 kopeeks in 1883.20. See the opisi (internal registers) to the following fondy in the GAZhO, op. 1-18 for f. 24

(Zhitomirskii okruzhnoi sud, 1880-1919); op. 1-9 for f. 19 (Volynskaia soedinennaia palataugolovnogo i grazhdanskogo suda, 1871-1880); op. 1 for f. 168 (Mirovoi sud'ia 1 uchastka

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Zhitomirskogo sudebno-mirovogo okruga, 1887-1919); op. 1 for f. 169 (Mirovoi sud'ia2 uchastka, 1882-1919); op. 1 for f. 170 (Mirovoi sud'ia 3 uchastka, 1884-1919); op. 1 forf. 171 (Mirovoi sud'ia 4 uchastka, 1872-1918); op. 1 for f. 172 (Mirovoi sud'ia 5 uchastka,1873-1915).

21. For examples, see GAZhO f. 170, f. 170, op. 1, d. 338 (Brikha Ginstburg vs. Dveira Modelfor failure to pay her salary of 25 rubles); f. 170, op. 1 d. 174 (Etli Shteinman vs. ItskoChakovskii for 12 rubles); f. 170, op. 1 d. 187 (Malka Kamenetskaia vs. Pinia Doegin for11 rubles); f. 170, op. 1, d. 265 (Leia Keizerman vs. Itsek Leib and Ester Rozenbaum for10 rubles); f. 170 op. 1, d. 322 (Rukhli Vakser against Leib and Khana Unikel for 10 rubles).The majority of domestic workers in Zhitomir district won their cases against theiremployers.

22. For examples, see GAZHO, f. 24, op. 3, d. 1134, g. 1889 (Suit of T. E. Fogelia and herdaughter to receive inheritance from late husband); f. 24, op. 7, d. 153 (Suit of widow E. I.Gershberg to receive inheritance of her husband Dr. D. F. Gershberg). Property andinheritance cases usually include a copy of the last will and testament, claims from variousparties, a court transcript and a final resolution.

23. For examples, see GAZhO, f. 65, op. 1, d. 178-end of opis. These suits include complaintsagainst Jewish tailors and seamstresses for not completing orders on time or for ruiningdresses, shirts and fur coats. For more on Jewish seamstresses and artisans, see SaraRabinowitch, "K voprosu o nachal'nom remeslennom obrazovanii evreiskikh zhenshchin,"Novyi Voskhod, No. 5, 4 February 1910, pp. 9-10.

24. For examples, see GAZHO, f. 19, op. 9, d. 172, g. 1876-1879 (Rape case of ShendliaZal'berman vs. Moishe Aba Serlik); f. 19, op. 8, d. 76, g. 1873-1875 (Rape case of Brik Etlivs. Moise Landa). See also Laura Engelstein, "Gender and the Juridical Subject: Prostitutionand Rape in Nineteenth-Century Russian Criminal Codes," Journal of Modem History, No.60, 1988, pp. 458-495.

25. Many of the domestic servants worked on Bol'shaia Chudnovskaia and Malaia Chudnovskaiastreets, which were all part of the third district of the Zhitomir Justice of the Peace Courtsystem.

26. "Senatskaia. praktika," Budushchnost, No. 5, 1902, p. 86.27. "Otvety podpischikam po iuridicheskim voprosam," Evreiskii mir. No. 10, 1910, p. 56.28. Khronika voskhoda, No. 39, 1899, p. 1203.29. Mark Zborowski, et al., Life Is With People, pp. 300-301.30. The state charged the transgressor a fine of 50 rubles for the first time and 100 rubles for the

second time. Anyone who resorted to the herem at least three times could be taken as amilitary recruit without a physical examination, Levanda, p. 372. Despite Russian lawsagainst the pronouncement of the herem, rabbinical courts still utilized it on variousoccasions. See Azriel Shochat, "Ha-hanhagah be-kehilot Rusyah im bitul ha-kahal," Zion, No.44, 1979, pp. 161-165.

31. See RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 18, 1. 20. Women whose brothers-in-laws refused to carry outtheir duty of halitsah (levirite divorce) also appealed to the state to enforce their rabbi'sdecree. For example, in the Gitli Mogilevskii case, the three brothers of her deceased husbandrejected their duty unless she gave them a significant amount of money. Unwilling to submitto their demands, she filed a petition to the governor of Poltava and requested his assistance.See RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 21, g. 1892-1894. For other examples, see: RGIA, f. 821, op. 9,d. 7, g. 1861 (Case of Pesia Iurevich); f. 821, op. 8, d. 291 (Case of Rosa Varshavskii). Theblatant disregard for rabbinical authority by some Jewish men, particularly in the cosmopoli-tan cities of southern Ukraine, Poltava and the two capitals (Moscow and St Petersburg),raises questions about the level of respect for religious authority among some Jews in the"new areas of settlement."

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32. RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 357, 1. 10-10 ob. Sura Litovchin Sagal vs. Abram Sagal, 18 May1867.

33. Geographic mobility affected Jews to an extraordinary degree both because they were linkedto commercial and industrial development and because of new residence laws for Jewishmerchants, students, artisans and soldiers. See Arcadius Kahan, Essays in Jewish Social andEconomic History, ed., Roger Weiss (Chicago, 1986).

34. See examples see: RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 18 (Ester Poliakov vs. Chaim Poliakov); f. 821,op. 9, d. 16 (Sara Shternfeld vs. Rafael Shternfeld); f. 821, op. 8, d. 296 (Ester Saet case).

35. For the most comprehensive study of the state rabbinate, see Azriel Shochat, Mosad 'ha-rabanut mi-ta'am' be-Rusyah (Haifa: The University of Haifa, 1975).

36. O. Levanda, Polnyi khronologicheskii sbornik zakonov i polozhenii kasaiushchikhsiia evreev,pp. 800-801. The law of 26 May 1853 warned that "no other individual, except for theconfirmed official rabbis and their assistants may perform religious ceremonies. Marriagesand divorces which are performed by [these] rabbis or their assistants will be consideredillegal."

37. KGGA, f. 16, op. 469, d. 19, 1. 13.38. "Polozhenie ravvinov v Rossii," Vestnik russkikh evreev. No. 18, June 1873, pp. 543-544.39. RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 41. Case of Rivka Adzhiashvili vs. Rabbi Shalashvili (1895-1909).40. See Shulhan Arukh, Even Haezer, pp. 75-77.41. Shulhan Arukh, Even Haeze'r, No. 77, p. 2 (The Rema).42. Ibid., Letter of MVD Kutaiskaia provincial state rabbi to the military governor, 21 June 1895.43. RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 13. Case of Malka Malamud vs. Rabbi Lev Kagan.44. TsGIA-Kiev, f. 335 (chancellery of the provincial governor general of Odessa), op. 1, d. 120,

1. 75.45. For a similar case to the Malamud suit, see RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 62 (Ita Radin vs. Rabbi

Lev Kagan).46. In an inquiry by the state to the Rabbinic Commission about the legality of "coerced"

divorces or those imposed against the will of the wife, the Commission replied that RabbiGershom of Mayence forbade men from divorcing their wives without their consent. "But inRussia," it noted, "coerced divorces still exist in reality." See RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 290,g. 1893. Questionnaire of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Rabbinic Commission.

47. RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 54. Khaia Giller vs. Rabbi Kraminka of Lida.48. She unexpectedly found out about her divorce through the Kaidanov Office for Townspeople,

which had received (from her husband) a copy of the divorce certificate from the metricalbook of Lida.

49. The rabbinic authorities investigating the case ruled that because the wife refused to moveto Warsaw with her husband (thus refusing to cohabit with him), she should be considereda moredet and deprived of her right to the ketubah (the sum paid to the wife in the event ofa divorce or death of her spouse as stipulated in her marriage contract) and tosafat ketubah(additional obligations of the marriage deed). After twelve months of her rebellion, the rabbisruled she should be forced to accept the divorce.

50. RGIA, f. 821, pp. 9, d. 54, 1. 69 ob.51. For a similar case in which the rabbis ignored a woman's claims of wife abuse by her

husband, see RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 16, 9 November 1887.52. RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 289, 1. 29 ob. -- 35 ob. Journal of the Rabbinic Commission (1879)

on Gitlia Kramer vs. state rabbi of Starokonstantin.53. The Zhitomir state rabbi, Lev Beinshtok, supported her case and wrote letters to the Rabbinic

Commission in an attempt to influence the final resolution.54. RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 360, 1. 1-2. Meltva Liubicheva vs. Lawyer Friedman.

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55. TsGIA, f. 442, op. 138, d. 53. Petition of Tsipi Satanovskaia; RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 16,1.1-1 ob. Petition of Sara Shternfeld.

56. RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 289, 1. 34 ob.57. RGIA, f. 821, op. 9, d. 16, 1. 33. Sara Shternfeld vs. Rafael Shternfeld. In this case, Sara

Shternfeld's appeal to the state did not necessarily go against larger communal interests.Husbands like hers who refused to pay support to their wives put an added strain on thealready overburdened Jewish charitable institutions. Petitions to the tsarist state to createmore philanthropic institutions for Jewish women and children reveal much about theincreasing impoverishment of single mothers and their families. See examples in GAZhO,f. 329 (Delo Volynskogo gubernskogo po delam ob obshchestvakh prisutstviia), op. 1, d. 94,g. 1912, Society for the Care of Poor Jewish Women and Children in Kremenets (the boardwas composed primarily of wealthy and educated Jewish women from Starokonstantin andKramenets); f. 329, op. 1, d. 131, g. 1913, Society to Care for Poor Jewish Parents and SickJewish Women in Radzivilov; GAKO, f. 10, op. 1, d. 116, g. 1908, Society for the Care ofPoor Jewish Children in the Rzhishev (Kiev province).

58. The Editing Committee or the Civil Code Commission, created in May 1882, included manyprofessional Russian jurists like Dmitrii Nabokov, Aleksandr Knirim and NikolaiStoianovskii. For more on the composition of this committee and its proposals for legislativereform see Wagner, pp. 149-169. For a discussion on Jewish family law, see "Zakonoproektpo evreiskomu semeistvennomu pravu," Budushchnost', No. 38, 1902, pp. 749-750.

59. Wagner, p. 161, citing Grazhdanskoe Vlozhenie. Proekt vysochaishe uchrezhdennogoRedaktsionnoi Kommissii po sostavleniiu grazhdanskago ulozheniia, i. 272, Articles 161,190-196.

60. "Zakonoproekt po evreiskomu semeistvennomu pravu," Budushchnost', No. 38, 1902, p. 749.

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