An Orthodox Jewish woman, desperate to obtain a religious divorce, broke down and sobbed on the witness stand Thursday as she accused her husband of raping and starving her.
"The night of the wedding, he made it clear that he owned me and that night he forced himself on me. I didn't even know what happened. I felt stuck. I had nowhere to go back to," testified Rivky Stein, 25, who was 18 when she married the then-26-year-old Yoel Weiss.
Rabbi Yoel Weiss in Brooklyn Supreme Court January 21st.Photo: Byron Smith
Stein also described in Brooklyn Supreme Court how she is currently entrapped by Weiss' refusal to give her a "get" — a document allowing her to divorce under religious law — which would let her restart her life.
"[The get] enables me to move on with my life instead of being stuck and chained as I am now . . . [Without it] I can't get remarried. I can't date. I don't have that hope for the future of the family I always wanted."
Stein's lawyer said that by withholding the get, Weiss is keeping Stein from ever remarrying and so he should support her "for the rest of her life."
"The oppression of women by perverting religious principals is a story that is as old as time," Michael Stutman, of the firm Mishcon de Reya, said in his opening statement in the civil case that will determine custody of the couple's two children, child support and alimony for Stein.
Stein's testimony cast a light on the normally cloistered Orthodox world, in which powerful rabbis exert ultimate control.
"There were two rabbis that I constantly went to about the abuse and bruises from Yoel," Stein testified.
"I would ask them what I should do and if I had permission to call the police. They told me that I can't. They wouldn't give me permission to."
Stein also claimed Weiss would punch her in the stomach when she was pregnant, locked her out of their home in the freezing cold, and didn't give her and the children enough food.
Weiss chuckled throughout Stein's testimony, causing Judge Esther Morgenstern to reprimand him.
"There's nothing funny here. I don't see any humor," said the judge, who added she had difficulty obtaining her own get when her marriage dissolved in the late 1980s.
"To see him laugh it off, it was very painful. He still continues to abuse me by not giving me my get," Stein told The Post outside court.
Morgenstern has pressured Weiss during the proceedings to give Stein the get.
Weiss' attorney said in court there was no proof of any abuse.
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