Yigal Sagi Refuses to Give His Wife a Get

Sins for which Yom Kippur won't atone:

This is Yigal Sagi. He left Israel in 2009, leaving his wife Sarit an aguna – a woman chained to marriage. About six years ago, she agreed to send the children to him for a short summer visit – and since then she has not seen them.

Although the couple lived as secular Jews in Israel, since leaving Israel Yigal has become entrenched in a religious Brooklyn community and has become observant. 

The children – who left Israel thinking they would return to their everyday lives in a month – apparently now study in ultra-Orthodox institutions. 

Sarit, who suffered a stroke shortly after learning that the children wouldn't be returning, required a long rehabilitation, and to this day has still not been able to see them, in spite of a number of attempts.

The beth din (religious court) ruled that it is permissible to "shame" Yigal by publishing his name and picture, as well as to impose various sanctions: 

that people may not "do him a favor or help him or do business with him. This obligation applies to his relatives and family as well as to the entire community and religious courts in each location as well as anyone who helps him to continue in his refusal [to grant a get to his wife]…" 

 The Chabad community in Brooklyn which, based upon information received by his chained wife, is providing him with refuge. 

Sarit Sagi is not giving up for a moment the right to see her children or the right to live freely. The ruling was attained with the help of advocate Devorah Brisk of OTS's Yad La'isha Legal Aid Center, in the hope that publicizing Yigal's name and picture will help bring justice.