(Photo Credit: Youtube)

By Sarita Azul

Last Updated 1/21/2020 at 3:00 PM

Haifa: A woman who married a wild boar from Haifa in 1999 is now, decades later, one of Israel’s many ‘Agunot,’ the name for women ‘chained’ to a defunct marriage and unable to remarry in a traditional ceremony. Her husband, the wild boar, has repeatedly refused to grant her the Jewish divorce degree known as a Get. Smadar S., who had only been on three dates before she married the boar, and who subsequently filed for civil divorce, is frantic to get a religious divorce as well so she can remarry and have a child before her biological clock ticks to the end of her fertility.

“I never thought a wild boar would trap me like this.” she said. “He was so nice in the beginning. But now my life is a mess and it’s completely unfair. Why does he get to remarry while I can’t even date? Being an Agunah is worse than turning forty.“

“Look, I understood that he was a wild boar.” Smadar went on. “But I thought my love would help him to change. I was patient. I was kind. He wanted to root through garbage? Fine. I looked the other way. His idea of a vacation was digging his furry snout into garden manure… whatevs. A wild boar’s gotta do what a wild boar’s gotta do. I get it. I’m not meshuganah. But he’s absolutely refused to be a mensch and grant me a Get, even when asked by friends, family, attorneys and others. His response was always the same. He’d snort a few times, trot away and overturn a trash bin.”

The wild boar population in the coastal city of Haifa has grown considerably larger since 2018 as a result of the city’s mayor, Einat Kalisch-Rotem banning measures that would have driven the wild boars away and/or killed them. Animal rights defenders have applauded the mayor’s defense of nature and the local wildlife, but there have now been reports of single wild boars in dating apps and groups of wild boars blocking traffic. Wild boars, like foxes, jackals and other wildlife, are protected by Israeli law.

“Wild boars are grey, their hair feels like bristle, and they can grow up to two meters (six feet) long.” Smadar took a long sip of her coffee and stared into the distance. “I don’t know why I thought that was Hot.”

“Oy, veh iz mir… you wouldn’t believe how selfish they are. A wild boar thinks only of himself. He never replaced the toilet paper after he used up a roll. Just left the cardboard. Seriously, every time. He never paid a bill. Never cooked a meal. Never a kind word. Nothing. De nada. I wish I’d gotten a pre-nup.”

As we got up to leave, Smadar inquired whether we knew any ‘discreet’ Arab Christians or Russians who ran a butcher shop. “Asking For a Friend“.