The Agunah
A Novel
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
The Agunah
Pre-order Now for £14.12
-
Narrated by:
“I am an agunah, rabbi, an agunah. For more than fifteen years I’ve waited for my husband to come back from the war. But he has not come and I cannot wait any longer . . . ”
Merl Tswilling has been married only a year when her husband is drafted into the army at the start of World War I and disappears without a trace. Years pass, the war ends, and still there is no word. Under Jewish law, Merl, once "carefree and gay," becomes an agunah—an “anchored woman,” bound to a missing husband and barred from beginning a new life. When she at last searches for permission to remarry, after fifteen years of waiting, her private anguish is thrust into the public spotlight.
The case of the agunah sparks a conflict between two unforgettable rabbinic figures: Reb David Zelver, a young and independent-minded rabbi who believes the law must make room for mercy; and Reb Levi Hurvitz, his formidable rival, for whom strict adherence is the highest form of justice. Around Merl gathers a volatile cast of neighbors, suitors, gossips, and opportunists, eager to debate, advise, condemn, and intervene, as her case spreads from house to house and shul to shul.
Reissued after five decades with an illuminating new introduction by Rachel Kadish, The Agunah stands as one of Chaim Grade’s most intimate and devastating works. In the seamstress Merl Tswilling, he has given us a literary heroine of the likes of Hester Prynne—a woman whose private life becomes the moral testing ground of an entire community.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet