A Brooklyn judge is presiding over a divorce case that’s strikingly similar to her own messy split from an Orthodox Jewish husband decades ago — only now she’s wielding her gavel to pressure the hubby into granting a “get.”
Matrimonial judge Esther Morgenstern filed for divorce from her then husband, Nathan Waidenbaum in 1987, according to records.
The judge, who was 27 at the time, had trouble receiving a “get” — a religious decree that would allow her to remarry in the Jewish faith, legal sources told The Post.
The divorce was eventually settled in 1991 and Morgenstern remarried.
Now the judge has threatened a rabbi named Yoel Weiss, 34, that she’ll order him to pay alimony for life to his soon-to-be-ex wife Rivky Stein, 24, if he doesn’t relent and give the mother of his two children a “get.”
Outside court Wednesday Weiss bashed the threat, calling it “unconstitutional.”
“In religious law, a man must give a get freely, so if you place something over him to force him, the get is meaningless,” Weiss said.
But a legal expert, who’s not involved in the case disagreed.
Matrimonial attorney Susan Moss said other judges have used the same tactic.
“The concept is if a spouse is stopped from being able to marry they’re essentially foreclosed from starting a new economic partnership,” Moss said.
Or “what the judge is really saying is ‘Give the get!” Moss said.
Stein’s lawyer, Michael Stutman with the firm Mishcon de Reya, agreed with Moss.
He said the judge’s reasoning is sound because without a get it would be “virtually impossible for her to remarry” and receive financial support.
Even though the judge has a personal history similar to Stein’s situation, she is not legally required to recuse herself from the case.
Attorney Martha Cohen Stine, another judicial expert who is also not involved in the case, said Judge Morgenstern only has to step down if she meets one of the following standards– is a party to the case, has been a lawyer in the case, has a financial interest in the proceeding or is related by blood to one of the parties.
Beyond that, “The judge is the sole arbiter of whether he or she is too biased or prejudice to be impartial,” Stine said.
The judge did not return a call for comment.