How Adeena Kohn Finally Won Her Get 

Adeena Kohn is finally free. Here is the story of the case that shook Orthodox Jewry and the woman who refused to be forgotten.

She was, by every legal and civil measure, a divorced woman. The courts had spoken. The custody battle had dragged through federal appeals all the way to the Second Circuit, and she had prevailed. But in the eyes of halacha, the only eyes that matter when an Orthodox woman wants to close one chapter of her life and begin another --- Adeena Kohn was still a wife.

Still chained.

That changed this week. On Thursday, 26 Sivan, after nearly five years of separation, multiple seruvs from the Beit Din of America, a national activist campaign, protests in the streets of Monsey, and a community-wide reckoning with one of halacha's most painful pressure points, Raphael (Rafi) Stein granted Adeena the get. A civil and religious divorce settlement was reached. The Vaad Harabbanim D'Gittin issued a rare public statement confirming the resolution, praising all involved for proceeding "with unwavering fidelity to halacha."

Adeena Kohn is, at last, free to remarry.

How It Began

Adeena Kohn and Raphi Stein were married in Montreal, where they built a life together and raised their children. The marriage broke down around 2020 and 2021, and what followed was a legal and communal ordeal of striking complexity.

Adeena filed for divorce in New York in October 2021, seeking sole custody and keeping the children in Monsey. Raphi pursued Hague Convention proceedings, arguing that the children had been wrongfully retained and should be returned to Montreal. He lost at the district court level, and again on appeal before the Second Circuit in 2024. Courts found that the children were settled in New York and that the retention did not meet the threshold of wrongfulness under the convention's timelines and defenses.

Civil proceedings in Rockland County stretched on into 2025. Each side made serious accusations. Raphi alleged parental alienation. Adeena's supporters alleged something else entirely: that the get was being weaponized, withheld as leverage to extract concessions on custody and finances. That allegation, whether one accepted or disputed it, became the fault line along which the entire community eventually divided.

The Seruv and the Silence

By early 2023, the Beit Din of America had issued a seruv against Raphi for failing to appear or grant the get. More followed. Communal pressure mounted through traditional channels. And still, nothing.

What made the case particularly enraging to activists was the allegation — disputed by Raphi's defenders — that he was not merely refusing, but actively advising other men in similar situations, running websites, and serving as a kind of informal strategist for get-refusal. Campaign materials described him as "the head of the dragon." Whether or not that characterization was fair, it transformed Adeena's personal tragedy into a communal symbol.

Meanwhile, Adeena remained an agunah. Unable to remarry. Unable to date within the community. Halachically bound to a marriage she had left years before. Raphi, according to those who tracked the case, moved through the community presenting himself as a divorced man.

Flatbush Girl and the Campaign That Would Not Quit

The case might have remained inside the tight walls of communal beit din proceedings had it not been for Adina Sash, the social media activist known as Flatbush Girl, who made agunah advocacy a central mission of her platform and her voice. In March 2026, Sash launched the #FreeAdeena campaign publicly and forcefully, and the Orthodox world could no longer look away.

Some of her methods were both bizarre and disturbing, but as always, there is little she won't do to help chained women.

A Change.org petition launched on March 25 gathered over 3,000 signatures. Protests erupted in Monsey, one captured by News 12 Hudson Valley, complete with loudspeakers, traffic disruptions, and emotions running very high. In one of the campaign's most striking and polarizing moments, Orthodox women posted images of themselves showing their arms in deliberate, pointed violation of modesty norms, a protest tactic that drew as much criticism as it did attention. GoFundMe campaigns raised funds for legal efforts and awareness.

The campaign was not without its critics, even among those sympathetic to Adeena. Some questioned whether the intensity of the public pressure was counterproductive. Figures within the community raised concerns about lashon hara, about the effect of sustained public shaming on any prospect for quiet resolution, and about whether the tactics reflected Adeena's own wishes. Living L'Chaim, a community media outlet, faced pressure over its coverage and issued a public apology - not to mention the recent uproar when Flatbush Girl reached way out of the box to draw attention (and outrage) to Adeena's case and cause.

But the campaign did not stop. And now it is over.

Resolution, and What Comes After

The Vaad Harabbanim D'Gittin, in its public statement confirming the get, was deliberate in its framing. The resolution, they said, came through private rabbinic effort and the work of askanim behind the scenes. They acknowledged the unusual public dimensions of the case while urging all parties, and the broader community, to move forward.

Raphi posted asking for privacy. "Thank God it's over," he wrote. "Let's be cautious moving forward." David Bashevkin, a respected communal voice, echoed the call: the settlement had been reached, he said. It was time to move on.

For Adeena, the moving on is now halachically possible in a way it was not last week. After five years, she holds her get. She is no longer an agunah.

What the case leaves behind is harder to resolve than any single woman's freedom. The agunah crisis did not begin with Adeena Kohn and it will not end with her. Activists have long cited statistics suggesting that significant numbers of divorcing Orthodox women face some form of refusal, prolonged pressure for concessions, or years-long waits before a get is granted. Calls for universal adoption of halachic prenuptial agreements, such as the prenup promoted by the Beth Din of America, grow louder with each public case.

The tension between communal activism and traditional beit din process, between the power of public pressure and the risk that such pressure poisons the well of private resolution, remains unresolved. So does the deeper structural question: in a system where one party holds the key and the other can only wait, how does a community protect the women it claims to cherish?

Adeena Kohn spent five years waiting for an answer. She has her get now. The question remains open.