WUNRN
Israel - Rites of Marriage
No
civil marriage - Religious rules prevail.
By Ariel David
|
Jun. 3, 2014
An
easy, simplified guide to intermarriage in
On the website of Hiddush, a nonprofit
organization that promotes religious freedom and equality in
Marriage in the Jewish state is a complex
matter, and is almost entirely under the purview of religious authorities.
There is no civil marriage. Jews can only be
married in a religious ceremony, by an Orthodox rabbi under the authority of
the Chief Rabbinate, the top religious authority for Jews in
Other religious authorities recognized by
This religious monopoly, which has no equal
among other Western democracies, puts people whose religious status is
registered as “other” in a particularly precarious position. This mainly
affects immigrants from the former
In 2010, in an attempt to solve this issue,
the Knesset passed a law that recognizes civil unions, but only if both
partners are registered as not belonging to any religion. Civil rights groups
criticized the law for being too restrictive and stigmatizing because, in
practice, it forces these immigrants to marry only amongst themselves.
According to Hiddush, which filed a freedom
of information request with the Interior Ministry, only an average of 18
couples a year have taken advantage of the new law.
Some of these immigrants and other non-Jews
residing in Israel attempt to solve the problem by officially converting to
Judaism, but only Orthodox conversions are considered valid and the process is
lengthy and complex, and requires applicants, most of whom are secular, to
pledge a high degree of observance of Jewish rules.
Since the 1960s, following a landmark Supreme
Court ruling, many interfaith couples have been able to get around the law by
marrying abroad – Cyprus is the closest and one of the most popular
destinations – and then having the union recognized by Israel’s Interior
Ministry.
This process too can be tedious and
intrusive, particularly when one of the couple’s members is not Israeli, which
leads ministry officials to demand proof that the marriage was genuine and not
done for the purpose of obtaining citizenship. Couples are subjected to
detailed questioning and asked to produce pictures, letters and other evidence
of the nature of their relationship.
Rabbi Uri Regev, the president and CEO of
Hiddush, noted that even Israeli couple in which both partners are
unquestionably Jewish according to Orthodox religious law increasingly reject
marriage in favor of cohabitation, because of the Orthodox establishment’s
power over the institution. Some secular Israelis object in particular to what
they see as the non-egalitarian nature of the Orthodox ceremony, he said.
They also do not want to fall under the
jurisdiction of rabbinical courts in the event they decide to divorce. Under
Jewish law, in order for a couple to divorce the husband must grant a get, or a
divorce decree, to the wife. This stipulation can transform a woman into an
“agunah,” a wife who cannot remarry and is “chained” to her husband until he agrees
to grant the divorce.
Same-sex couples are also excluded from
marrying. Several proposals for a law introducing civil marriage in