Letter from Jerusalem: New Knesset Civil Marriage Bill Indecent Proposal

Bill would create new underclass of "untouchables" and won't solve the problems of marriage in Israel, Hiddush head writes.

This article was originally published in Hebrew on Ynet and has been translated by Hiddush:

Knesset civil union bill ‘indecent proposal’

Proposed legislation would create ‘leper caste’ of second-class citizens who are allowed to marry only among themselves

By Uri Regev • Hiddush.org

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee has begun preparing the bill on civil union for religiously unaffiliated people for its second and third plenum readings. The proposed law seeks to institute civil registration of unions in Israel – as a shabby marriage substitute strictly for people without any religious identity.

Sadly, many of the Knesset members will not hesitate to raise their hands in favor of the bill. Contrary to the false pretense being created by the coalition, not only does this bill fail to improve the state of human rights in Israel, but it actually makes matters worse. If passed, this bill will create a new caste of non-Jewish lepers, second-class citizens who shall be permitted by the state to marry only each other.

The monopoly the Chief Rabbinate and the rabbinical courts hold over marriage and divorce by Jews results in a severe violation of the fundamental human right to establish a family. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens cannot wed in their own country. Whether you are one of the more than 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union whose mother or grandmother was not Jewish, or a convert from the United States who underwent a Reform or Conservative conversion, or a secular Israeli Jewish man who is a Cohen and has fallen in love with a divorced woman, or even if you simply want to have an egalitarian civil ceremony – Israel sends you to get married abroad.

There is no other country in the democratic world with marriage and divorce laws that grant the religious establishment such control over the freedom to marry, and such capacity for abusing an individual’s private life. Laws of this nature are indeed familiar in quite a few countries, mainly those governed by religious law in the radical Islamic world. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates: “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.” Israel knowingly violates this declaration.

Several bills that went a great deal further than the present one, in seeking to apply civil union to the entire population, were submitted previously. They were torpedoed by the ultra-Orthodox parties. The intentions of those submitting the bills were desirable, but their actions were not.

Let us be clear: Civil union is not marriage but rather a second-rate substitute for marriage. In other countries similar arrangements are available for couples who do not wish to get married, and for same-sex couples for whom the country does not sanction marriage. Anyone who peruses the explanatory preamble to the present bill will not find this simple truth. Evidently the Ministry of Justice, which prepared the bill, did not care to confuse the Knesset members with the facts. But to the proposers of this bill we say: There is no room to sentence first-class citizens to a second-rate ersatz marriage.

Since the issue is not one of marriage at all, many thought the rabbis would be delighted to place this means at the disposal of the general public, and thereby alleviate major halakhic problems along the lines of mamzerut (the status of offspring born as a result of relationships forbidden in Judaism), adultery, and aginut (a situation in which a woman cannot remarry because her husband refuses to grant her a bill of divorce, or his whereabouts are unknown). However, the anticipation of good will on the part of the rabbinical establishment turned out to be vastly misplaced. Even this questionable substitute was perceived as too liberal for their liking. And so the government got back on its hands and knees, and submitted the present bill.

The bill presumes to provide a “solution” for the marriage of some 300,000 immigrants who belong to families of Jews but are not themselves Jewish according to halakha. This is a baseless presumption. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the annual number of marriages between two people without any religious affiliation is a mere 200 or so. It stands to reason that many of these would prefer real nuptials abroad to “pseudo marriage” in Israel.

We are therefore left to wonder what exactly is hiding behind this bill: Is it an Israbluff, an attempt to present the initiative as a breakthrough and solution for the many when it really offers dubious and small comfort for the few? And perhaps those behind the legislative initiative think that now, once the law has been passed, it will be possible to place the numerous people without religious affiliation into a juridical detention camp, to compel them to marry one another, and to perpetuate ad infinitum their foreignness and difference from the rest of Israel’s residents whose Judaism the rabbinate recognizes.

That way they will remain without any succor for their foreignness, since the rabbinate also refuses to open the gates of conversion to them. Regardless of whether we are talking about a vicious legislative proposal or one that is futile and pointless – it is clear that the bill up for vote in the Knesset is an indecent proposal.

We can but remind the legislators of the promise of freedom of religion and conscience guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence that Established the State of Israel, which has been waiting more than 61 years to be fulfilled. The vast majority of the public wants freedom of choice in marriage. It is high time the government listened to the public.

Rabbi Uri Regev, Esq. is the CEO of Hiddush – for religious freedom and equality

Comments

[sheiner kleiner]

Am I dumb or does anybody understand what he is trying to say?

[Ben]

Orthodox Rabbinate shows to be vicious legalists, just like their islamis

[reuven sabel]

there should be no shame in not being a jew as the torah does not require non-jews to become jews in order to be allowed to live together with the jews in the holy land. if a non-jew wants to live together with the jews in the holy land, he has to take it upon oneself to follow the 7 commandments that were commanded to noah which include not practicing any religion other than judaism and not intermarrying with jews. if he wants to keep more than the 7 commandments that were commanded to noah he is welcome to keep more than the basic 7 commandments, but he cannot become a full- fleged jew until he sincerely takes it upon himself to keep all 613 commandments.

[Ben]

613 as counted by Drukman or by Sherman?

[reuven sabel]

i think we should go a follow up study on all converts to judaism to see what their current religious practices are and if any rabbi or bais din converted too many gerim who are not currently shomer torah umitzvos that rabbi or bais din should be banned from doing conversions and if any rabbi who is banned from doing conversions continues to do conversions, all of his converts should br required to reaffirm their conversions before an approved bais din.

[Ben]

Good idea reuven sabel! And I recommend to go further and check genealogy of every Jew for presence of converts and if a Jew can not prove his/her genealogy all the way to Mount Sainai on all three million sides, we should disqualify that Jew and immidiately clear the abomination from Israel.

[reuven sabel]

ben:
are you a nazi who wants to see the world yudenrein?

[reuven sabel]

holy brother shmarya,
there are interesting developments in the starving mother trail that you are not covering.

[R]

what trail is this starving mother leaving? Bread crumbs?
No non jew is expected to practice Judaism at all.
And yet this bill will not help people, they simply need to rid the current rabbinate of their power. Anyone who wants to marry by Jewish law should have the choice and it should be something extra as well as having a civil marriage...like in other countries.

[Ben]

Reuven sabel, I don't make conversion rules, the haredi gadolim do. Therefore it is not me,but them who you must accuse of an attempt to make the world yudenrein.

The simple truth is that EVERY JEW has some converts in his/here genealogy. The truth is also that every Jew has people that did not follow halacha 100% in his/her genealogy. Therefore, by the logic of our current nazi-rabbonim Shermans, Elyashivs, Esenstadts, Attiases band of crazies, every Jew's Jewish status must be annuled.

The idiotic thinking process of our haredi gadolim will make world yudenrein.

[Yerachmiel Lopin]

A RADICAL TORAH BASE SOLUTION

As gedolim warned, entanglement in the state is bad and more entanglement is worse. The Eidah Charedis is right; the state is treyf.So how kosher can kiddushin be if it sanctioned by the state. We know that in New York State great poskim have invalidated gittin ordered by the secular courts.

We have to show the secular shkotzim that our rabbonim are completely independent. No more working with the treyf rabbanit with the Metzger who disgraces the torah by not even being qualified as a dayan. No more recieving any welfare payments. No more using Hadassah. No more relying on army (davening works better). no more using electricity made by zionists (yidn managed to keep mitzvas just fine before electricity)

Once we do this no one will bother us. we can do kiddsuhin, gittin, geyeirus without any pressure. They can do what they want because it will be words in the air. They want some rabbi wihtout a beard to perform a marriage fine. We will do them a grat favor like R. Mosheh did and not recognize it eliminating all questions about agunot and mamzerim (except unless rabbi weinberg in williamsburg got his daughter pregnant, you know that nice neighbor who was convicted in Williamsburg for doing it to his daughter from when she was 13 to 18.

Yes, lets just finally end the business with the state. Not a penny from the state. Also not a penny to the state, but that is already a well established minhag.

I realize this will mean working to support our kollel people, but it can be done. I heard of a frum scientist who has developed a method to tripple the work output of our women, and to reduce their need to sleep to only after midnight on shabbos.

[Dave Marshall]

Yerachmiel, hilarious !

[reuven sabel]

yerachmiel lopin:
unfortunately we are no longer living under the rule of the turkish empire. unfortunately england defeated turkey in world war one. unfortunately a jew named balfour became a friend of the king of england and unfortunately got the king of england to make a balfour declaration promissing the zionists a jewish homeland in palestine. unfortunately the balfour declaration got the arabs to start killing the jews in the holy land. unfortunately the jews started listening to theodore herzl yimach shmo vzichro and wanted a jewish state. unfortunately this got the arabs to kill even more jews and this got the jews to start killing arabs which got england to start fighting the jews which got the more and more jews to to unfortunately become zionists and fight england for their independance which angered the arabs even more and got the arabs to kill even more jews.
how good and pleasant is was for bretheren to dwell together in unity under the turkish empire, the children of issac dwelling together in peace with the children of his brother ishmael.
hiney ma tov uma naim shevet achim gam yachad.

[reuven sabel]

why cant israel be like other countries?
other countries are not constantly being threatened with destruction by all of their neighbors like israel is. other countries are not constantly being threatened with being pushed into the sea(mikva) by all of its neighbors like israel is. other countries are not being threatened with destruction by suicide bombers like israel is. the only way to end this vicious cycle is for israel to become such a holy country that the arab muslims will recognize israel as the holiest country in the world and for the muslims to recognize that jews are holier than muslims. this is why we have to protect the sanctity of israel by not letting jews marry non-jews.

[reuven sabel]

we cant let jews marry non-jews because we jews are faced with destruction if we will not be a holy people.

[reuven sabel]

actually according to the holy torah, non-jews who want to live together with the jews in the holy land dont have to become jews in order to live together with the jews in the holy land. they just have to attain the status of ger toshav bnei noach, children of noah who keep the 7 noahide commandments and recognize judaism as the one and only true religion and dont practice any other religion.
it is definitely required by jewish law that all goyim quit being goyim and instead of practicing goishe religions, start practicing those parts of the jewish religion that all non-jews are required to keep by jewish law.

[reuven sabel]

the problem is that the law of return only allows jews to move to israel when according to jewish law non-jews who dont want to be goyim anymore are also allowed to move to the holy land to live together with the jews in the holy land on the condition that they keep the 7 noahide commandments, not practice any non-jewish religion, consider themselves as part of the jewish people instead of whatever nation they came from, and not intermarry with jews.
the law of return should be amended to allow non-jews who are rabbinically certified to be a legitamate ger-toshav to move to israel and live in israel. then there would not be pressure on the goyim who live in israel to become full-fleged converts to judaism and there would not be the pressure on goyim who want to move to israel to undergo phony conversions in order to move to israel.

[BaltimoreYid]

Years ago when I worked on a non religious kibbutz the Israelis who wanted to marry non Jews flew to Cyprus. The marriage was recognized by the state and life went on. I am not in any way advocating inter marriage but free people should have free choice. When people lose their right to choose we are on the road to the Islamic caliphate.

[Mr. Apikorus]

There should be ONE form of marriage recognized in the United States, and in Israel. That is civil marriage (or civil union, take your pick) between two consenting adults.

Churches, synagogues, mosques can impose their own requirements for a religious ceremony. But those religious ceremonies would not have the force of law (although the clergyman should have the right to issue a civil certificate, as they do now in the USA, simply so a couple wouldn't have to show up at the courthouse for a second ceremony).

In any case, a religous ceremony would not have any legal standing beyond the one instance I mentioned, in that it would also count as a civil marriage to avoid duplication.