19 July 2007
Couples in Israel who not considered Jewish according to Jewish law will be able to tie the knot in a civil marriage, following a consensus reached between justice minister Daniel Friedmann and Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi Shlomo Amir. It is the first time that religious authorities have given the go-ahead to a civil marriage and divorce procedure. However, the bill drafted by Friedmann and Amir, will be restricted to cases in which both spouses are not considered Jewish according to Jewish law. A statement from the Justice Ministry said that these kinds of marriages would take place in a civil court and would fall under family court jurisdiction. The existing law does not permit civil marriage in Israel. The Chief Rabbinate's monopoly on marriage and divorce since the state's establishment in 1948 has forced new immigrants, who are not considered Jews, to marry overseas. Some 264,000 people in Israel, most of them from the former Soviet Union, are not recognized as Jews according to the Israel Religious Action Center's figures.
However, these immigrants are entitled to automatic Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. The law extends Israeli citizenship eligibility to anyone with a Jewish grandparent. In contrast, only people born to a Jewish mother are considered Jews according to Orthodox Jewish law, and only those immigrants are permitted to marry in Israel, unless they belong to another religion such as Christianity or Islam.
