26 Dec JEWISH SOLDIERS AND THE WAR DIVORCE

Soldiers go out to
war and do not know
if they will return. If
the worst happens and
they do not return, their
wives cannot remarry
without proof of death.
To avoid the possibility
of widespread agunah
problems, for centuries if not longer, Jewish
soldiers have divorced their wives before
leaving. The exact nature of this divorce is a
matter of debate but we know this was done
through World War II. This is particularly
helpful when a soldier is known to have been
killed in battle but there is insufficient proof
of his death to allow his wife to remarry. It
frees women who are ready to move on with
their lives but are stuck in a dead marriage.
Today, these divorces are not done. We will
briefly discuss here the different options
available and when and why they ceased
being used.
I. Soldiers Divorcing Their Wives
The Gemara (Shabbos 26a, Kesubos 9b)
says that the soldiers in King David’s army
would divorce their wives before going
out to war. Rashi (Kesubos 9a s.v. get)
says that the divorce is conditional on the
husband dying in war. If he dies, his wife is
retroactively divorced and therefore, if they
have no children, she is not subject to yibum
or chalitzah, having to marry her deceased’s

husband’s brother or formally separate from
him. Otherwise, if the deceased’s brother is
uncooperative or living in another part of
the world, the widow is stuck in permanent
singlehood. Because this simple reading of
Rashi’s approach solves very few problems
for soldiers, Tosafos (ad loc., s.v. kol) suggest
that Rashi meant that every soldier divorces
his wife on condition that he does not return
from war. Therefore, if a soldier does not
return, his wife does not need proof of death
in order to remarry. Tosafos also quote
Rabbeinu Tam who says that the soldiers
divorce their wives with no condition at all
and remarry them when and if they return
from war.
Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin (20th cen., Israel;
Le-Or Ha-Halachah, part 1 ch. 8) quotes a
number of responsa from the late 19th century
and early 20th century that discuss these
types of divorces as done by actual soldiers.
For example, Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehudah
Berlin (Netziv, 19th cen., Russia; Responsa
Meishiv Davar 4:51) discusses the case of a
kohen who was sent out to fight in a Russian
war. With the guidance of his city rabbi, he
gave his wife a divorce in 1879 on condition
that he returns to the city within two years.
The war ended but he was sent by the army
straight to Moscow for administrative duties
and was not allowed to return home. Because
he was a kohen, if the divorce took effect, he
would not be able to remarry his wife. Netziv

reluctantly concludes that the wife can
forgive the condition of his return and then
the divorce is nullified because it is as if the
husband returned.
II. World War II Changes
Rav Zevin (ibid.) describes how Rav
Yitzchak Herzog, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi
of Israel, was concerned during World War
II that soldiers from Israel in the British
army might appoint a specific scribe or
specific witnesses to give a divorce in the
future who might not be alive at the time
the war finished. Instead, he arranged for the
printing of appointment (harsha’ah) cards
which a soldier signed, appointing anyone in
Jerusalem to write, sign and give a divorce
to his wife. The cards added a condition that
a divorce should only be given if one of the
Chief Rabbis of Israel is informed that the
soldier is missing and only at least one year
after the enemy releases the prisoners of war.
Rav Herzog noted the issue of soldiers
returning home briefly to visit his family and
then going back to the frontlines. This was
not possible during European wars, where
men did not return home for brief visits. If
a man lives with his wife after appointing
a messenger to divorce her, he undermines
the entire procedure (Shulchan Aruch, Even
Ha-Ezer 149:7). Therefore, Rav Herzog also
printed forms for soldiers in Israel to sign and
send to the Rabbanut after every home visit.
In late 1939, a few months after World
War II began, the London Beth Din
published a booklet written by Rav
Yechezkel Abramsky examining the
issues and offering an alternative text
for Jewish soldiers in the British army
fighting in World War II. Men refused to
give their wives divorces, even conditional
divorces, because of the emotional pain.
Rav Abramsky recommends that soldiers
appoint two scribes and no witnesses to
write, sign and give his wife a divorce if
he does not return within five years. He
should appoint two scribes in case one dies
or leaves the country. He should appoint
no witnesses in case those he selects die. A
divorce with no witnesses appointed for the
writing is acceptable but if it has witnesses
appointed and they die, the divorce will be
invalid on a biblical level. For a man with
no children, Rav Abramsky encourages
the giving of a conditional divorce. But
if the soldier refuses, he can appoint two
scribes like other men. Regarding soldiers
who return to visit home briefly and then
go back to war, Rav Abramsky argues that
this only happens in a normal case when a
couple has split and then reunite. Clearly,
at least for a brief time, they want to remain
together and not get divorced. In the case
of a soldier, the time together never negates
the appointment for divorce so it remains
valid.
III. Israel
During Israel’s Independence War, the two
Chief Rabbis of Israel — Rav Yitzchak
Herzog and Rav Ben Tzion Meir Chai

Uziel — strongly encouraged soldiers to
appoint scribes and witnesses to divorce
their wives if they do not return from war. As
mentioned above, they printed cards to make
it easy for soldiers. Rav Shlomo Goren, in
an article about the freeing of agunos from
Israel’s Independence War (in the memorial
volume for Rav Herzog, p. 164), describes the
difficulties implementing this. Even though
the IDF made it easy to appoint a scribe to
divorce a wife if the husband does not return
from the war, thereby resolving potential
agunah problems, soldiers refused to sign. At
some point, for a short time, the IDF required
married soldiers to sign the appointment
cards, but they did so unwillingly. That
raises the problem of a coerced divorce, get
me’useh, which is invalid. In addition to these
problems, some IDF commanders refused to
ask soldiers going out to battle to sign the
appointment card because of concerns for
troop morale.
Rav Herzog writes likewise, in his response
to Rav Shlomo Goren’s initial analysis of the
widows of Kfar Etzion (Heichal Yitzchak,
Even Ha-Ezer, vol. 2 no. 1). Rav Herzog says
that the rabbis did all they could to help the
soldiers solve the problem in advance but the
soldiers refused. After all this effort, the Chief

Rabbinate gave up on the pre-war divorce-
appointments and instead had to undergo the

difficult process of case-by-case analysis of
the circumstances of each soldier’s death.
In his 1953 book, Hilchos Medinah (vol.
2, section 7 ch. 2), the Jerusalem-based
scholar, Rav Eliezer Waldenberg, includes
the exact language of the Chief Rabbinate’s
appointment card as well as similar language
based on Rav Abramsky’s views published
by Agudas Ha-Rabbonim of America.
Over the past decades of Israel’s wars, we
have seen that soldiers can be captured and
held for years, even decades. In other times,
when a war ended, the enemy would return all
the war prisoners. A divorce or appointment
could be conditional on a husband returning
with or not long after the general release of
captives. Israel’s enemies do not work like
that. Any conditional divorce or appointment
would have to be worded carefully in order
take into account this complication. Captive
soldiers, known to be alive, should return to
their intact family even after many years. To
my knowledge, these various solutions are
not done today, even by religious soldiers.
Instead, as R. Aharon Rakeffet describes
in detail (Rakafot Aharon, vol. 4, pp. 114-
124), leading rabbis spend significant time
examining the circumstances of soldiers’
deaths in an attempt to free their wives from
being a lifelong agunah.