What's Hebrew For Purgatory?

Samantha Louis — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:00:00 -0500

For the past twenty years, a French Jewish woman has been "agunah" — the ancient Hebrew term for a women chained to her marriage after her husband goes missing — after her husband disappeared.

Now, according to Israel's YNetNews, the husband has resurfaced in an Israeli jail and says he's willing to free his wife from her nightmarish situation.

The wife and her family say they made every effort to find the husband over years. To everyone's surprise, it appears as if the husband spent the whole time living right under their nose, traveling between Israel and Europe.

For her newfound freedom, the woman has to thank Israel Prison Service's chief rabbi, Yehuda Yekutiel Vizner, who both managed to locate the husband and then eventually convinced him to give his estranged wife a divorce.

After the man finally saw the light, rabbinical judges had him sign divorce papers in prison, thus freeing his wife from what was looking like a lifetime of official bondage.

Really, though, we think the woman was asking for trouble when she married this guy. Not only did he initially leave over financial woes, but in Israel, he's served six complete jail terms, and is now serving his seventh related to property and violent offenses.

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What's Hebrew For Purgatory?