Grandson Of Former Israeli Chief Rabbi To Tie Knot With A Man

Image by gettyimages

By JTA June 1, 2018

(JTA) — A grandson of a former chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel reportedly will exchange wedding vows with a man at a ceremony led by a religious gay woman.

Ovadia Cohen, whose late grandfather Ovadia Yosef was the Shas party spiritual leader and Israel’s foremost Sephardic halachic authority, will tie the knot next week with Amichai Landsman, Ynet reported Thursday.

Cohen was very close to his grandfather, according to Ynet. His parents divorced when he was a child, leading the rabbi to take an active role in his upbringing, he told Ynet. Yosef died in 2013.

Cohen had been married to a woman with whom he had two children, but they divorced and Cohen came out as gay. Three years ago he met Landsman, who grew up in a religious Zionist community in Haifa, and the two moved in together while maintaining a religious lifestyle.

Cohen has had “very partial” contact with his family following his coming out. Landsman says his religious family has come to “accept” him.

The ceremony celebrating the couple’s union will be led by Zahorit Sorek, a prominent activist in the gay religious community and a member of the Yesh Atid party, whose fight against what it considers religious coercion regularly puts it on a collision course with Shas.

The State of Israel does not have a civil marriage option and all state-recognized wedding ceremonies must be conducted by a cleric. However, it does recognize partnerships between same-sex spouses who register as living together.

Contact Haley Cohen at [email protected]

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re in the middle of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 22.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO