Israeli charged in NY plot to kidnap divorce-refusing husband
Prosecutors say Binyamin Gottlieb a co-conspirator with 2 other ultra-Orthodox men who sought hitman to abduct, murder recalcitrant man
New York authorities have charged a third ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in connection with a plot to kidnap and murder a man who had refused to grant his wife a religious divorce.
Binyamin Gottlieb, an Israeli citizen who serves as a divorce mediator in New York’s ultra-Orthodox community, was arrested Sunday by FBI agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Ukraine.
Federal prosecutors on Monday charged Gottlieb with conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the same plot that led to the arrests of Shimen Liebowitz and Aharon Goldberg last week.
Liebowitz 25, and Goldberg, 55, were arrested for allegedly planning to pay a private investigator $55,000 to kidnap and then murder the man.
According to prosecutors, Liebowitz belongs to the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic community in the village of Kiryas Joel. They say Goldberg is from Bnei Brak, Israel, and is a prominent rabbi in Kiryas Joel.
On September 6, both men were charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder for hire.
According to reports, Gottlieb gave a sworn statement saying he had introduced Liebowitz and Goldberg to the private investigator, and later delivered the $25,000 payment to him.
The court determined Gottlieb was a flight risk and he was being held without bail.
In Orthodox Judaism, a marriage cannot be undone unless the man consents to a get, or religious bill of divorce. Rabbinical courts cannot force a man to give his wife a get but they can impose harsh punishments on men the judges determine are unjustly withholding a get and turning their wives into what is known in Judaism as agunot, or “chained women.”
Orthodox rabbis will not allow a chained woman to remarry. Any children born to such a woman out of wedlock will in turn be ineligible for an Orthodox Jewish wedding.
In December, a prominent rabbi from the New Jersey township of Lakewood was sentenced to 10 years in prison for running a ring that violently attempted to coerce Jewish men to grant their wives religious divorces.
The problem of recalcitrant husbands in the Jewish faith is dealt with in a few ways but can be complicated in the US, said Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. In Israel, he said, husbands who refuse to grant divorces can be imprisoned. Because that can’t happen in the United States, communities sometimes resort to exerting social pressure on the husband.
Kiryas Joel, located about an hour north of Manhattan in New York’s Orange County, is home to a close-knit ultra-Orthodox community run by a Satmar faction led by Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum.
The Times of Israel Community.