Women protest plan to expand power of rabbinical courts During a recent trip to one of the conferences held across the U.S. and Canada recently on tackling domestic violence, I had an interesting dialogue with some Jewish women about the problem of Agunah - or "a chained woman." It came down to some feeling that the male-dominated religious leaders in Judaism were furthering the abuse by invalidating the women asking to leave the marriage. Almost all said rabbis they knew would minimize the man's abuse or cheating and tell the women they had to stay & "work it out." Of course it only got worse. The answer to this problem lies in our leadership taking a hard, long and honest look at the needs of these women. Keeping the family together is good - but not when one member puts their needs above the family or has a personality disorder that is making that impossible. Indeed, it hurts the family more when a civil break would help heal wounds and restore sanit...