Israel To Allow Civil Marriages

By Michele Chabin
Religion News Service

JERUSALEM (RNS) For the first time in its 62-year history, Israel will soon allow a limited number of couples to marry in civil ceremonies.

The Civil Union Law, which received final parliamentary approval this week, applies only to couples who have no legal affiliation with an organized religion.

Until now, all Israeli marriages had to be performed as religious unions in order to be recognized by the state. Jews, Muslims, Christians and others wishing to marry first had to register with their respective religious authorities.

There has never been a provision for religiously unaffiliated couples, mixed-faith couples or Jews wishing to be married by a non-Orthodox rabbi.

While hundreds of couples without a religion are expected to take advantage of the new law, it does not provide a solution for intermarriage or couples where one partner has an identifiable religion and the other does not.

There are religious leaders in Israel who will perform marriages for such couples, but the marriages are not recognized by the state.

David Rotem, the lawmaker who proposed the new law, sees it as a first step that solves one problem, but said he'll push for provisions to extend civil unions to all citizens, not just those without an officially defined religion.

Ultra-Orthodox politicians have repeatedly blocked a law that would permit civil marriage for any couple that wanted it, believing such a law would weaken religion and encourage intermarriage.

Opponents to the current bill say it will stigmatize couples who opt for civil marriage. "I think it's a terrible precedent," said Rabbi Uri Regev, director of Hiddush, an organization that promotes religious freedom and equality.

"At best this measure may assist a couple hundred couples a year and by listing their civil status in their ID cards, everyone from the shopkeeper to the secretary in their child's school will know their business," Regev said.

Comments

[Babele]

07:44 PM on 11/10/2010

Amazing Israel would allow anything civil.

[Robin Margolis]

07:05 PM on 11/08/2010

As the Coordinator of the Half-Jewish Network, the largest organization for adult children and grandchildren of intermarriage, I will explain why this law is not a benevolent advance.

Children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers in Israel -- thousands of people -- are classified as "non-Jewish" under Orthodox Jewish law. They are not allowed to legally marry Jews with Jewish mothers or two Jewish parents, except by flying to Cyprus for a civil ceremony.

This law is an election payoff by Rotem's right-wing Yisrael Beteinu party to these voters, but instead of allowing them to marry anyone they chose in a civil ceremony, they are now 'allowed' to legally marry only each other in Israel.

Since many of them wish to legally marry in Israel Jews with two Jewish parents and half-Jewish people with a Jewish mother, this law is almost useless and will help only a few of them. So the Cyprus civil marriage industry won't be out of business soon.

What kind of modern democracy forces people to fly to another country to marry because they are not "Jewish enough" or "not Jewish" or "non-halachic (not Jewish by Orthodox Jewish law) Jews"? It's a disgrace!

Sincerely,
Robin Margolis

[PeterOregon]

04:57 PM on 11/09/2010

Simple, Israel is not a modern democracy. Israel is a theocracy dominated politically by the orthodox crazies.

Is Judaism a religion or a race? Either way Israel has made this a defining characteristic of citizenship and full civil rights. This is the antithesis of secular democracy.

The US should end our "Special relationship" and start treating them like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

[lotus321]

07:53 AM on 11/10/2010

This is just the stupidest thing I have ever heard..the whole half Jewish concept. Last I heared I didn't think Jewish was a race classification. IS this simply use to control who can call themselves a Jew.

[squiems]

12:58 PM on 11/08/2010

a good first step

[schnauzergirl]

12:23 PM on 11/08/2010

So much for Isreal trying to call itself a secular democracy. Its a theocracy that just happens to let let religious minorities file their own paperwork.

[62luv]

12:33 AM on 11/07/2010

Have you people ever heard of the "God of the Jews?" You cannot separate them. EVER.

[gakabani]

12:46 PM on 11/07/2010

A "god" for one people is no "god." Such infantile concept requires one thing "propaganda" to be pushed into the media.

[Angel Whitebird]

04:35 PM on 11/06/2010

Why dont these religious nut cases stay out of the nuptial department.??

[TYRANNASAURUS]

07:02 PM on 11/06/2010

You answered your own question Angel when you referred to them as ...... NUT CASES.

[Michell Guzmn Talbot]

04:08 PM on 11/09/2010

religious nut cases is redundant, please use one of them indistinctively.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

01:54 PM on 11/06/2010

Until now, all Israeli marriages had to be performed as religious unions in order to be recognized by the state.......

I thought Israel was a little more advanced than this.

This is unbelievably stupid and yet atheists can get a civil union without a problem?

[Jeremy Urbach]

10:36 PM on 11/06/2010

They are laws that were created at the inception of Israel in 1948...the Secular Jews such as Ben Gurion had to get the religious haredim on board to democratically initiate the state of Israel. In return, the secular parties gave religious groups some political power but not ones that would compromise the democratic nature of the state...also, many of the standards of giving rabbis religious power goes back to the Ottoman millet system that was built into the British mandate laws which became the basis of the modern day Israeli legal system...its complicated....

[billstewart]

09:45 PM on 11/07/2010

It's not "without a problem" - this is something brand new for Israel. In the past, if atheists wanted to get married, as long as the religion they didn't believe in was Orthodox Judaism that was ok, but if what they didn't believe in was Reform Judaism, they might not be allowed to get married. I don't know if this led to atheists just shacking up without marriage, or if they had other ways around the problem, like getting married while they were on vacation somewhere else.

[black series]

09:50 AM on 11/06/2010

LMFAO.

[El Superbeasto]

02:29 AM on 11/06/2010

What?! How embarrassing that this was even the case until now. What a horrible place.

[J Maness]

06:23 PM on 11/05/2010

So Israeli couples are no longer required to fight?

[rf dude]

05:03 PM on 11/05/2010

L'chiam!

Mazal tov!

7W3!

[vulpecula762mm]

02:17 PM on 11/05/2010

Well that's something anyway. I always thought the solution to their problems lay in getting laid.

I say this in all sincerity.

[Max Shaw]

02:12 PM on 11/05/2010

This is absolutely a good first step in the right direction for Israel. For too long has interfaith marriages been denied and frowned upon with the Jewish and Muslim communities...even here in the US. But given some time, I think they will be able to see that love should be defined in terms of religion or faith, but in terms of the heart and the heart knows no religious or cultural bias...

[Max Shaw]

02:20 PM on 11/05/2010

NOT be defined in terms of religion..sorry for the typo.

[wolfiegirl]

05:09 PM on 11/05/2010

Absolutely.... as someone who has been very happy in an interfaith marriage for almost 20 years... we have learned to respect and worship together, and find common ground, and impart that to our children, who are as moral and have as much integrity as any child around them. And it's been worth it.

[sevumar]

01:52 PM on 11/05/2010

This is a good move, but only the first step toward modernizing institutions that remain little-changed from the old days of Ottoman rule. This is something that Israel should have done a long time ago. The reality is that there are many secular Israelis who attend temple only on holidays, but remain affiliated with the Orthodox movement. The Orthodox use this as a form of support for their continued monopoly on Jewish religious life in Israel. It's frustrating to more modern streams of Judaism and Diaspora communities that are more reform-minded.

[multidoc]

08:18 PM on 11/08/2010

I guess that it must be terribly "frustrating" to live in a supposedly enlightened country that tells you who you can and can't marry.

[umish]

12:51 PM on 11/05/2010

hatzacha isra'el. for joining or at least partly enterning the 19th century. now if you want to join the 21st centruy, dump all the rabbis into the ocean and let people live their own lives as they see fit, not as some arthritic old cowger deems one should live.

Marriage should be granted corporation status as any business with a contract etc. then we wont need to schtup the rabbis gelt and keep them in control