The Untold Story: Resolving the Agunot Crisis After the Dakar Submarine Tragedy

Following the horrific massacre in the south during Simchat Torah, beyond the overwhelming sorrow and grief, a problem of agunot emerged, which was brought to the attention of the great halachic authorities of the day. In some cases, there is no concrete information that can definitively prove the status of the missing, whether alive or dead. In such cases, the woman becomes an agunah, regrettably, and halachic authorities do everything within their power to ensure the possibility for her to remarry.

One cold night in the month of Tevet, 5728, at midnight, a radio signal was received at the Haifa naval base. The officers on duty gathered around the radio, considered advanced technology at the time, and confirmed the transmission was coming from the Navy's submarine "Dakar." The submarine was currently near the island of Crete.

The submarine had set out days earlier from the port of Portsmouth in England, where it had been refitted and acquired at that time. Although "INS Dakar S-77" was not brand new, it was considered a "second-hand in good condition." It had served the British during World War II and was acquired by Israel in 1965.

The tragic disappearance of the submarine on its maiden voyage, with its 69 crew members, left the nation in shock. No trace of the submarine's fate was found, despite repeated investigations. The wives of the missing were declared agunot, since it was unclear whether they had drowned, been captured by a communist or Muslim force, or faced any other frightening possibility.

According to halacha, if someone falls into "waters that have an end," you can permit his wife because we know the boundaries of the lake or river, and had he survived, he would have appeared on one of the shores. But when someone falls into "waters that have no end," where we cannot control all the edges, like the Mediterranean Sea, we cannot permit based solely on disappearance, as perhaps he washed up onto a distant shore and was captured, injured, or prevented from sending a signal regarding his location.

A year later, a buoy from the submarine was found near the port of Gaza. The discovery of the buoy proved that the submarine was damaged and had not been captured intact. As a result, rabbis addressed the halachic issue and permitted the wives of the missing to remarry.

One of the women permitted to remarry at the time is Mrs. Nurit Manor, who assists agunot with spiritual and social support.

Finding the buoy served as a halachic sign for the agunot, but from a military investigation standpoint, it was a disaster, as all searches focused on the Middle East area, Gaza, and Egypt, thus influencing the various interpretations given to the event. Over the years, it became clear that the direction was incorrect. The buoy had drifted a long distance to Gaza. Only around 31 years after its sinking, on May 28, 1999, the remains of the Dakar submarine were discovered by a Nauticos search vessel. The remains were found at a depth of 3 km, on the route to Haifa, 485 km from its destination. The ship contained the remains of the missing crew, conclusively proving that, unfortunately, they all perished in the sinking, and their wives married according to Jewish law.