Not Jewish? Not MarriedThe Gateshead Orthodox community defended themselves yesterday after a Rabbinical Court granted a Get to a senior Rabbi when, after 47 years of marriage, he discovered that his wife was not Jewish.
Rabbi Sholem Greerson found out that his wife was not Jewish after a long lost relative of Mrs Greerson traced her whereabouts 60 years after she had been separated from her family.
Her birth parents, Maria and Pavel Rosinsky had hidden Jewish children from the Nazis during the Holocaust. After the war, as part of an effort funded by Jewish philanthropists, the children who had been hiding in the hay loft in the Rosinsky’s barn were taken to America. The Rosinskys who were decorated as one of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ in Yad Vashem sent their only child, Natalia away too. As Petr Rosinsky her cousin recalled, “They sent her to America for two reasons: to make a better life for herself there and because they were both self hating Anti-Semites. They wanted Natalia to grow up among Jews so that she didn’t also become an Anti-Semite.”
In America she quickly integrated into the Brooklyn Jewish community, living two blocks from Sholem Greerson, and attending the same Synagogue, the pair married three weeks before Greerson was due to enter rabbinical seminary. They moved to England where Greerson served as a Rabbi at a number of large congregations before retiring to teach and study at the Gateshead Yeshiva.
After Petr Rosinsky came forward a rabbinical court ordered an immediate DNA test which confirmed that Mrs Greerson was not related to anyone within the community but was related closely to Rosinsky. In an emergency session, the court granted Rabbi Greerson a Get at 3.17 in the morning.
Greerson commented, “we were married for 47 loving years and then I find out the woman I loved, the woman I went to Synagogue with is a Goy. Let me tell you that when I found out that my wife was not Jewish, that it was the most painful day of my life - more painful I imagine than my circumcision. For me it is not such a big thing – I’m 73 – I no longer have needs that only a woman can fulfil. I have the Torah. That’s all I need. What do I need Shikzehs for at my age? but for my children it’s a tragedy. She gave me 13 children and now it turns out that they are all mamsers. Truly the sins of the father have been visited upon the children. I feel sick with guilt constantly, as if I have eaten a Big Mac, except I have not eaten a Big Mac.”
A spokesman for the Movement for Reform Judaism, the new website coordinator Michael Parkman said, “Granting this Get after 47 years of a loving marriage quite clearly contravenes basic Jewish values like Dugma Ishit, Ruach, Kol Nidre and Cheder Ochel.”
Rabbi Motti Cohen who sat on the Rabbinical court recommended that orthodox Jews need to be ultra vigilant against intermarriage. “This case just goes to show that intermarriage effects the orthodox community and is not just a problem for the reformers” said Cohen.Rabbi Donny Rich-Osmond, Chief Executive of Liberal Judaism took issue with both Michael Parkman and Rabbi Cohen. “On the one hand we do not base our analysis of contemporary Jewish affairs on token Jewish words that we learnt in our youth movements. At the same time, we find the granting of the Get deeply problematic. We are in favour of divorce as we are living in the contemporary world, but in Liberal Judaism there is no problem of intermarriage, just an opportunity. We would do well to remember: all the world's a very narrow bridge, rishrush shel hamayim, od yavo shalom aleinu.”
Speaking from Jerusalem, the Saphardi Chief Rabbi disagreed with the decision to grant the Get, “The court made its decision very quickly and without regard for Halacha: The lady was not Jewish and so therefore there was no Jewish wedding. There was no need for a Get as there was truly speaking no marriage in the first place.”
Mrs Greerson is keeping a low profile, but friends say she is distraught. One congregant who spoke to at the synagogue on Shabbat said “Natalia feels her life has fallen down around her. She has lost the husband that she loved and the shame of her children not being Jewish. She cannot think of anything worse. For 60 years it was as if she was a better Jew than me, and now this. The Almighty works in mysterious ways.”
