‘He Took The Tears Of Oppression To His Heart’

In memory of Rabbi Simcha Krauss, whose efforts to solve the agunah problem evoked gratitude from women and condemnation from peers.

Rabbi Simcha Krauss: Insistent that Jewish law and compassion be compatible.

“We are guardians of Jewish law,” Rabbi Simcha Krauss once said of the rabbinic role.  And “if we can say yes, we should say yes” to those “yearning to be closer to God.” 

That comment was made in 1997, when as rabbi of the Young Israel of Hillcrest, Queens, he was a lone voice of support for Orthodox women’s prayer services among his colleagues on the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, of which he was a founding member.

The controversy was reported in The Jewish Week and mainstream media, resulting in a spike in registration for the first conference on feminism and Orthodox Judaism, held in New York City a few days after the Vaad’s ban on women’s prayer services went public. The conference led to the founding of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance.

It was just one battle waged in Rabbi Krauss’s lifelong struggle to apply the tools of Halacha, or Jewish law, with compassion for all.

The rabbi, who died at 84 on January 20 in Jerusalem, dedicated his life to the love and study of Torah, teaching its laws and putting into practice its foundational moral message that each person is created in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect.

His most lasting legacy may well be transmitting that message through his work as head of the IBD, the International Beit Din, dedicated to finding solutions within halacha to free agunot (“chained” wives). The court was founded in 2014 and based in Riverdale. 

It was in that community in recent years that my wife and I were blessed to get to know Rabbi Krauss and his wife, Esther, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career as an educator in Orthodox schools for girls.

As longtime admirers of their vast influence on congregants and students, we were able to experience their warmth, thoughtfulness and commitment to sustaining Jewish life.

Rabbi Krauss would sometimes share with me his frustration with an Orthodox establishment that harshly criticized the work of the IBD and, all too often, him personally, asserting that the methods he used in freeing women were too liberal. He spoke with me off the record about these matters, in keeping with his decision to focus his energies on helping women gain their freedom rather than engage in public debates. (As someone who frequently was criticized in my work by elements of the Orthodox community, and others, I found a degree of solace in Rabbi Krauss’s approach.)

On a virtual program Feb. 20 marking the Shloshim (30-day mark) since the rabbi’s death, it seemed appropriate that one of the most poignant of the tributes and remembrances came from a former agunah.

The woman, who chose not to be shown, identified herself only as being from a rabbinic family and formerly married to a rabbi. She said Rabbi Krauss’s combination of  Talmudic scholarship and human care and concern, through the IBD, finally helped free her – and softened the bitter disappointment and disillusionment she had endured for years from her lack of success with other Orthodox rabbis and religious courts.

“His goal was to make halacha (Jewish law) more humane,” the woman said, a point that family members, rabbinic colleagues, countless former congregants and students, and other former agunot have made during the initial month of mourning for Rabbi Krauss.

A local Shloshim service will be held on Tuesday, March 1, at 8 p.m. ET at the SAR Academy in Riverdale to commemorate his life and legacy. (See below for details.)

An Abuse Of Agunah

Perhaps Rabbi Krauss’s inclination to utilize the tools of halacha to benefit Jewish women was in his lineage. 

Esther Krauss told me that as a young boy, her husband, who was born in Romania, recalled witnessing his father, the chief rabbi of their town, freeing agunot whose husbands disappeared during World War II and were presumed dead.

“That was a time of great need,” she said. “It was very common that men did not come back from the war – a classic use” of allowing women to go on with their lives. “In contemporary times, agunah became a weapon,” she noted. “Simcha said it was an abuse” of what agunah was intended for – to help women.

Too often, recalcitrant husbands blackmail their wives, demanding exorbitant funds and/or full custody rights of the children before releasing them from the marriage.

Given his lifelong commitment to applying Jewish law to modern-day problems and advocating for women’s religious rights, Rabbi Krauss was a natural choice to lead the IBD. Though living happily in Israel since 2005 after retiring from his many years in the rabbinate, the rabbi, at the age of 77, heeded a 2013 request from Orthodox feminist activist Blu Greenberg that he return to America to lead the planned religious court. Since beginning its work in 2014, it has freed well over 100 women from the U.S. and other countries. 

Greenberg, founder of JOFA and president of the IBD, recognized the rabbi’s unique qualifications to take on the challenge. He was a respected scholar, having studied with luminaries of both the yeshiva and Modern Orthodox world. He was ordained by Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner of the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva and studied with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik of Yeshiva University. Greenberg recalled that Rabbi Krauss “would stay up nights thinking of creative tools within halacha to help solve each case, if possible.” And in the interest of transparency, he would make public the methods the court applied.

“I know the criticism from his colleagues pained him, but he felt it would hurt the cause of the women if he engaged in communal brawls,” Greenberg said.

Rabbi Krauss’s family confirmed that though he was disappointed at the actions of rabbinic peers like Rabbi Hershel Schachter of Yeshiva University who openly called him unqualified to make beit din rulings, and the rabbinic arm of the Agudath Israel of America, which called on its rabbis to ignore the court’s work, he did not hold a grudge.

His children – daughters Rebecca and Aviva, and son, Binyamin – told me they would get upset at times with their father’s stoic attitude but he would playfully respond, “what are they going to do, fire me?” And when a prominent Israeli rabbi reneged on a written promise he had given to Rabbi Krauss to support the IBD, Rabbi Krauss chose not to call him out for backtracking under pressure from the religious right. “He didn’t want to embarrass a chaver (friend),” Greenberg said.

Among the many who have written moving tributes in recent days, David Makovsky, a Mideast expert in Washington, described how he came to love Talmud through Rabbi Krauss, then his ninth grade rebbe in a St. Louis day school. “I learned from him not just the beauty of Jewish study but the idea that knowledge has communal consequences. If you are learned … you must always look for its application in the real world.

“He felt Torah could not flinch and therefore neither would he,” Makovsky wrote. “As such, his courage came from the Torah itself and enabled him to withstand any criticism.”

In noting his passing, Rabbi Krauss’s colleagues on the IBD, from which he retired several years ago, wrote that he “took the tears of the oppressed to his heart,” and working tirelessly to give hope to hopeless women.

Rabbi David Bigman, who heads Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa in Israel and succeeded Rabbi Krauss several years ago as Av Beit Din (chief of the beit din), told me that one of the things he admired most about the rabbi was his “wonderful sense that halacha by nature should be just and compassionate. He felt that something was deeply wrong if people abuse the halachic system to abuse their wives” by not freeing them from “dead marriages.”

To help prevent future agunot, many rabbis recommend a prenuptial contract. But that doesn’t help existing agunot or women in marriages without a prenuptial agreement. 

Perhaps one reason why the criticism of the IBD and Rabbi Krauss has been so harsh from rabbinic colleagues is that the court’s efforts are an implicit critique of those who, however pained they may be by the plight of agunot, have done little to alleviate the women’s suffering. 

Rabbi Krauss’s response in 1997 to critics of his support for women’s prayer services still resonates today. “You can hurt me, you can insult me, but at the end of the day this is not about me,” he said. “We’re standing up for these women, and if we win, the whole community wins. And if we lose, more is lost than we can ever know.” 

Though Rabbi Krauss often was ill in recent years and had great difficulty walking, he was unwavering in following the path of commitment and compassion. 

May we strive to walk in his footsteps. 

A memorial program for Rabbi Krauss will be held this Tuesday, March 1, 8 p.m. ET, at the SAR Academy in Riverdale, where his son, Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, is principal. To register to attend – either in person or virtually – click here.