Jews To Build New Wall

No, not in Israel.

In Brooklyn.

The story (here as well as here)

...when Pinchas and Nechama Gold both refused to leave in their bitter divorce battle, the courts found a unique way round the impasse.

A judge ruled the Orthodox Jewish couple, in their 50s, had to build a ‘divorce wall’ down the middle of their home to formally separate themselves.

They have two weeks to agree where it should go, or the court will decide for them.

How they will split up essential features such as the stairs, the toilet, the bathroom and other amenities such as their kitchen have yet to be determined.

What is also not clear is what kind of form the wall will take - Judge Eric Prus did not stipulate whether bricks and mortar or a sturdy piece of thick cardboard would suffice to carve up the huge Victorian property in the Williamsburg area of New York, which has a large Orthodox Jewish community.

‘This could be called the divorce wall,’ said Rabbi Mendel Gold, Mr Gold’s brother. ‘It could probably even help healthy couples.’

...‘They've been living like there was a wall up for two years now,’ said Abe Konstam, an attorney for Mr Gold.

‘This just helps them completely avoid each other.’

He added: ‘If she's so religious, why does she refuse to get divorced the right way -- in a beth din,’ a reference to the religious tribunal that grants Jewish divorces...

But this is not new. It happened to another Orthodox Jewish couple in 2007:

Like two Cold War adversaries, Chana and Simon Taub are separated by a wall — one that was built straight down the middle of their home to keep the bickering spouses apart.

Neither one wanted to move out of their beloved Brooklyn house, and so, in one of the strangest divorce battles the city has ever seen, a white drywall partition was erected a few weeks ago on orders from a judge.

The divorce case, which has been staggering through the courts for nearly two years, has been dubbed Brooklyn's "War of the Roses," after the 1989 movie starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as a battling couple.

Aside from the wall, the Taub version of the story has some other farcical elements: Chana says her husband of more than 20 years has bugged her phones. Simon says his wife owns too many shoes.

.."It's my house. And emotionally, in my age, I want to be in my house!" says Simon, 57, who was the one who requested the wall. He calls his wife a gold-digger.

Chana, 57, who claims her husband abused her, says she has as much right to stay as he does, if not more. "I need a house to live in and money to live on!" she says. "I worked very hard, like a horse, like a slave for him."

...But an actual wall? That's a new one, says Barry Berkman, a New York divorce lawyer.

The wall separates the living room from the staircase on the bottom floor of the Taubs' richly decorated, wood-paneled home, a three-story brown-brick rowhouse whose market value has been put at $923,000 by the city.

She gets the top floor, where the bedrooms are situated, along with the kitchen on the second floor. He gets the living room on the first floor and the dining room on the second floor. So that they don't run into each other on the second floor, the door between the dining room and the kitchen is barricaded on both sides.

One of the couple's children is staying with Dad; three others are staying with Mom...

Wonder who their judge was?

Ah, here: Supreme Court Judge Carolyn Demarest.

Both Demarest and Prus are Jewish names.



(Kippah tip: CR)


- - -