The Get, or Bill of Divorce

Painting of Jews gathering around a table where a divorce document, a get, is being signed.

The get is the bill of divorce that the husband gives to the wife to release her from the marriage.

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A “get,” an Aramaic word, is an official Jewish document in which a man agrees to divorce his wife. When a man refuses to give his estranged wife a get, she becomes an “agunah,” or chained woman, unable to divorce according to Jewish law and thus unable to remarry. Although the woman can still have a civil divorce, without the religious divorce, she will remain married according to Jewish law and in traditional communities that adhere to Jewish law.

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Pronounced: TALL-mud, Origin: Hebrew, the set of teachings and commentaries on the Torah that form the basis for Jewish law. Comprised of the Mishnah and the Gemara, it contains the opinions of thousands of rabbis from different periods in Jewish history.

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