For some families, there was no body and no grave at which to stand. Sometimes there was only a final telephone call, a husband’s office high inside one of the towers, and the knowledge that the building itself was gone.

Everyone around a woman might know that her husband could not have survived, but halachah still required that his death be established. Until it was, she had lost her husband without yet having the halachic certainty that she was his widow.

Fifteen agunah cases resulting from the World Trade Center attacks came before batei din in the New York area. Ten were handled through the Beth Din of America. The dayanim worked through phone records, workplace locations, eyewitness testimony, DNA evidence, time-stamped records, and centuries of halachic precedent.

 

Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz zt”l

As Av Beit Din of the Beth Din of America, Rav Schwartz was central to resolving the World Trade Center cases. His teshuvah dealing with the 9/11 agunos became an important contemporary halachic ruling, confronting circumstances few could have imagined before the towers fell.

 

Rav Mordechai Willig

Rav Willig deliberated alongside Rav Schwartz and played a central role in investigating and resolving the World Trade Center cases.

 

Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg zt”l

Rav Goldberg, one of Eretz Yisrael’s leading halachic authorities, was consulted by the Beth Din of America.

 

Rav Ovadia Yosef zt”l

Rav Ovadia Yosef was also consulted in connection with the World Trade Center agunah cases. One of the preeminent Sephardic halachic authorities of his generation, Rav Ovadia reviewed the extraordinary circumstances and issued a permissive ruling.

The involvement of authorities of the stature of Rav Ovadia Yosef and Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg reflected the seriousness with which the batei din approached every case before permitting a woman to remarry.

 

Rav Chaim Jachter

Rav Jachter later documented the Beth Din’s methodology and halachic reasoning, preserving how the dayanim approached an agunah crisis unlike anything they had previously confronted.

His writings detail the evidence, methodology, and precedents that allowed the cases to be resolved within halachah.