Shalom,
I wrote an essay about an innovative way of addressing the “Agunah Crisis†proposing that Day School students or lay leaders run “campaigns†to have all married parents (who have not done so already) sign BDA postnuptial agreements. It can be viewed here: [
blogs.timesofisrael.com]
These campaigns should be done systematically, tracked with follow up, and aim for 90% (if not 99%) compliance among the parent body. As I explain in my essay, the model should be voter or health campaigns, where there is already a large body of literature on maximizing participation and “buy-inâ€.
I would hope that all Day Schools would strongly support these campaigns.
I floated this idea on Lookjed several years ago and it generated some responses which can be seen here: [
www.lookstein.org]
While I am less interested in the pedagogic value of a Post-Nuptial Agreement campaign than its value to the Jewish communities, having High School students run a Post-Nuptial Agreement campaign would be a valuable lesson in activism demonstrating that one does not need to have a title or a degree to make a difference.
When I last brought up this idea on Lookjed, most of the discussion focused on the larger meta-halakhic questions of the Agunot and Prenuptial Agreements. Even if there might be little value in introducing Day School students to Prenuptial Agreements, using the local School as the framework for a campaign can address this important issue in an unparalleled systematic and effective way.
As there would be little financial cost to the school or the couple it would be a win/win situation in building good will and publicity for the school.
If possible, I would like the readers of Lookjed (of the students or parent bodies) to implement my recommendations in every one of their schools. Therefore, if any of my members of the Lookjed community have any reservations or concerns about running a Postnuptial Agreement Campaign in their school, I would appreciate their sharing it.
I would welcome any emails discussing how to practically implement a Postnuptial Campaign in their school or community.
Kol tuv,
Yonatan Kaganoff
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2018 05:59AM by mlb.
