Have y’all seen this? I’m horrified.

Alternative

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 3:52 am

BadTichelDay wrote:

Yes, many would like that and civil marriage has been pushed for forever.
But if Israel introduces civil marriage, it will split the nation in two huge groups - halachic Jews and questionable maybe-Jews. Until now, even the most secular Israeli Jews have a chazaka on their status as halachic Jews as long as their parents got married by the rabbanut. A few generations down with civil marriage it would become extremely difficult to determine who's a Jew and it might also lead to an increase in mamzerut if divorced people remarry civilly and no one checks for a get.
It would ruin Israel's identity as a Jewish state. I hope that one never gets through.

I think one factor that would tone down the request for civil marriage could be a total reformation in the way getts are given.
Too many Israelis are very unhappy about the way that works now.

sequoia

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 4:05 am

BadTichelDay wrote:

So you have no solution to the fact that many Israeli citizens can’t get married at all, to anyone?
Civil marriage = civil rights.
There is no good reason that two Israeli citizens, neither of whom are halachically Jewish, can’t marry each other.

And intermarriage can and does already happen, in Cyprus or anywhere else.

BadTichelDay

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 5:08 am

sequoia wrote:

If civil marriage was permitted for couples where both partners are halachically clearly non-Jews*, I'd have no problem with that. But once you do that, people who are halachically Jewish but have marriage/divorce problems or halachic Jews who want to marry a non-Jew will clamor for equality before the law and then the great mix up will begin, as I wrote upthread.
(*By the way, non-Jews who practice Xtianity, Islam or are Druzim of course can get married inside Israel by their own clergy).

Intermarriage in Cyprus is easily recognizable as such when the children of such a couple reach marriable age under the current system. The moment they have to present their papers, the "secret" is out. It is also stigmatized in the traditional and dati population. If my children were to date someone whose parents got married in Cyprus, it would light up a bright red warning light for me.
On the other hand, if it was just civil marriage for all, it would be a lot more difficult to see who is halachically Jewish and who's a mamzer.
Keep in mind that a lot of frum Jews are not hareidi but DL and don't go through a rigid shidduch system.
If civil marriage comes around, this will also affect BTs and genuine geirim who would come under general suspicion.
It would deepen the rifts between the different sectors of Jewish society in Israel.

Several hareidi rabbanim have announced that in case of civil law marriage they will install "sifrei yichusin", in principle data banks about who counts as halachically Jewish and who not. Inevitably a lot of people who actually are halachically Jewish but not frum would be left out and lumped with the unmarriable maybe-Jews.

sequoia

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 5:17 am

BadTichelDay wrote:

(*By the way, non-Jews who practice Xtianity, Islam or are Druzim of course can get married inside Israel by their own clergy).

.

You know perfectly well who I’m referring to. People who are half or three-quarters Jewish, identify as Jews, served in the IDF, but can’t marry anyone at all in their own country.

How can you say, “this violation of civil rights is not a problem”? Isn’t Israel supposed to be the most moral country in the world?

Dina2018

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 5:52 am

sequoia wrote:

people who are „half or three-quarters Jewish“ are halachically not Jewish and so they cannot marry according to halachic Jewish laws. Isn‘t there a logic to it?

sequoia

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 6:11 am

Dina2018 wrote:

people who are „half or three-quarters Jewish“ are halachically not Jewish and so they cannot marry according to halachic Jewish laws. Isn‘t there a logic to it?

Um... yeah, I know.

Which is why there should be civil marriage, not under the auspices of any religious authority.

I was responding to BTD’s post about xtians or muslims being able to marry, so... maybe read the entire conversation first?

Alternative

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 6:45 am

Lack of civil marriage is a HUGE problem in Israel. Not just for Jews.
It's ridiculous that in this day and age, an atheist Druze or atheist Arab of Christian or Moslem origin is forced to get married via a clergy and a religion they do not believe in.

Personally I think that if this continues, within 10 years secular people will just give up on the idea of being formally registered as married. They can have a symbolic ceremony, but they won't run to be married officially.

BadTichelDay

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 8:03 am

sequoia wrote:

How can you say, “this violation of civil rights is not a problem”? Isn’t Israel supposed to be the most moral country in the world?

Who defines what "civil rights" in Israel are? The US? Israel is not America and does not have to do things the American way. From the founding of the state in 1948 marriage has been solely in the hands of the religious clergy of the major religious groups in the country. There has never been a right to civil marriage so far. While it would seem a good idea to find a solution for people who are halachically non-Jews but do not want to convert to Judaism and don't want to belong to any other religion, doing so would inevitably lead to civil marriage for all as the next step, with all the problems I mentioned upthread. Which is why it hasn't been done yet and always has been pushed off whenever the issue came up in political discourse.

The most moral country? That's what those inefficient hasbara guys keep telling the world. But which set of moral values are we talking about? Western Wokeness or Torah values? The two don't always mix.

Israel is also the only Jewish country of the world.
The old day Zionist founding fathers, secular and socialist though they were, understood that and made sure to keep the character of the state Jewish by involving the rabbanut in personal status laws including marriage and keeping the army and hospitals kosher and making Shabbat and the chagim the official holidays, and a lot more.
If this Jewish character of the state was dismantled and Israel became a multi-ethnic totally secular democracy, with separation of religion and state, then what would it exist for? In that case we could just rename the whole thing to "The Democratic Republic of Palestine". Or "Eastern Mediterrania".
And if Jews don't really need a Jewish state, if any sufficiently enlightened secular democracy will do, maybe we should really stop taking up space in the Middle East and go back to where we came from?
I'm being totally sarcastic here of course - from the right wing DL/ Chardal perspective to which I adhere, we would like to make the state MORE religious, not less. The future ideal would be to transform it into a halachic state, not a secular democracy.

sequoia

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 8:31 am

Right, but can’t you have a Jewish state (which I support!) while also giving all citizens the right to something as fundamental as marriage?

If other civil rights were based on belonging to a specific religion — if, say, atheists could be arrested and held indefinitely for no reason, or couldn’t get healthcare, or attend protests, or their children could not go to school — if all those things required belonging to an organized religion — you’d probably agree that’s not a good idea.

And... wokeness??? Me?

I think you meant “Enlightenment values.”

BadTichelDay

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 9:01 am

sequoia wrote:

Right, but can’t you have a Jewish state (which I support!) while also giving all citizens the right to something as fundamental as marriage?
If other civil rights were based on belonging to a specific religion — if, say, atheists could be arrested and held indefinitely for no reason, or couldn’t get healthcare, or attend protests, or their children could not go to school — if all those things required belonging to an organized religion — you’d probably agree that’s not a good idea.
And... wokeness??? Me?
I think you meant “Enlightenment values.”

The problem with civil marriage is that it is so unsolvably tangled up with the question of who-is-a-Jew and that it has the power to create more and more people who identify as Jews but halachically are not. In a closed environment like Israel, as the Jewish nation state, that is much more of an issue than in the US or Europe where everyone can identify as anything they want and do their own thing or else just blend into the majority population.
Healthcare, protests and schools, also citizenship and voting, don't have that specific explosive power. They don't make or un-make anyone's descendants Jewish.

The Enlightenment has come a long way since its conception and produced many strange fruits, wokeness and political correctness the latest among them. Sometimes I just tend to oversimplify and lump it all together, my mistake.

princessleah

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 10:46 am

I got married in a frum ceremony in NY and nobody made me prove my Jewishness, nor my husband's. I don't get why Israel does this. Did it start with the Russian immigration or before?
What happens if 2 secular Jews get married in Israel and then move out of the country, and don't bother with a gett? it's so problematic.

Also, someone mentioned above that even secular Israelis don't like the Conservative and Reform movements. But I can only see it as a good thing. Maybe if some secular Israelis see other ways to observe Judaism that are not Orthodox, they will move closer to Judaism? Even if it's affiliating Reform, you end up having some observance of holidays, going to services, etc. It can be viewed as a fantastic kiruv opportunity. Maybe some will find meaning in observance to which they were previously cynical.

BadTichelDay

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 11:02 am

princessleah wrote:

...Maybe if some secular Israelis see other ways to observe Judaism that are not Orthodox, they will move closer to Judaism? Even if it's affiliating Reform, you end up having some observance of holidays, going to services, etc. It can be viewed as a fantastic kiruv opportunity. Maybe some will find meaning in observance to which they were previously cynical.

A lot of, maybe even most, secular Israelis do have some observance of the holidays. (Of course it helps that they are the official state holidays). To my best knowledge lots of them do hold a Seder every year, even if they don't keep much kosher for Pesach otherwise. About 80% of Jews in Israel fast on Yom Kippur. That includes a lot of secular people by necessity. Lots of them also light Chanukka candles and give mm on Purim. It's cultural for them rather than religious but it is widespread. The environment is simply Jewish, the chagim are always in the air, unlike in chutz la'aretz where there is the constant pull in the other direction from the surrounding culture.
I can see reform keeping some people partially observant in chutz la'aretz but in Israel that seems redundant because here is already widespread, even if low level, cultural observance.

Alternative

Wed, Mar 03 2021, 11:29 am

I think eventually this will have to be solved. It isn't practical, ethical or feasible to force totally secular non-believers (be they ethnically Jewish, Arab, or from Russia/abroad) to marry via a religious system they totally don't identify with.

I don't know what will happen down the road, but it definitely can't stay like this. Yes twenty or thirty years ago secular people were willing to marry via the rabbanut, for example, because they didn't think too much into it/there was not so much awareness about agunot/there was not so much religious-secular strife. But will the children of today's secular parents be willing to go to a charedi or chardal rabbi in order to get a marriage certificate? I somehow doubt it.

The status quo will change, though in what way I don't know. I predict people will just stop marrying formally and will just live together. I don't think that will solve the halachic issue though, because if a couple does that, and he gave her a ring in front of a couple of friends, aren't they considered halachically married anyway?

Chickensoupprof

Thu, Mar 04 2021, 1:10 am

Alternative wrote:

fair point.... but I see it threathing for the orthodoxy it's a zionist victory I guess.... cuz some reform and conservative Jews and some also secular are strong zionist it's not neccesary this is good for maintaining orthodox values. However it's no secret that the rabbanut is all politics