PRESS RELEASE JULY 2004

Anat Zuria's "Sentenced to Marriage," ("Mekudeshet" in Hebrew), following the efforts of Ohr Torah Stone's Yad L'isha Legal Aid Center's women advocates and their fight for their clients' freedom, won the Best Documentary Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival on Sunday, July 18, 2004.

The film tracks the struggle of three young, married women, Tamar, Sari and Smadar, over a period of two years. Although from different backgrounds, the three women share the same sentence; they are agunot, literally "chained women," bound to dead or abusive marriages. They can't get a divorce (a get) because for the rabbinical court to grant one they need their husband's consent. They don't know when they will be set free because the date of their release depends solely on their husband's whim. They are forbidden to build new relationships because married women are forbidden to other men under Jewish law. They are condemned to be barren, as married women are forbidden to bear the child of another. Their voices are silenced because they are anonymous women whose pain and suffering is embedded in the religious laws - of the democratic country of Israel, in the 21st Century.

With the help of the knowledgeable, passionate and dedicated woman advocates - graduates of Ohr Torah Stone's School for Women Advocates and employees of Yad L'isha (literally "a hand to women," or "power to women"), the three agunot fight an uphill court battle toward freedom, a release from their chains and the beginning of a new life.

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