Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rabbinate’s Strict Rules Bar 660K Jews From Marrying in Israel

Prohibitions on civil and non-Orthodox weddings in Israel prevent 660,000 Jewish-Israelis — including 364,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union — from marrying in the Jewish state, according to a nonprofit promoting religious freedom in Israel.

Hiddush presented the information in a report Monday to a Knesset conference on “alternatives to marriage through the [Chief] Rabbinate,” according to a news release the group issued Monday. It also reported that 20 percent of weddings registered in Israel took place overseas — a way of circumventing the prohibition on non-Orthodox weddings stateside — and that 70 percent of secular Israelis say they would have non-Orthodox wedding ceremonies if the state permitted them.

The nonprofit attributed its statistics to opinion polls and Israel Central Bureau of Statistics data.

Rabbi Uri Regev, who heads Hiddush, told the Knesset conference that growing numbers of Israelis “wish to be free of the Rabbinate’s shackles” and that the “monopoly of the Rabbinate” hurts Judaism because it “leads the general public to hate Judaism and identify it with dark, ugly extremism.”

In addition to many immigrants, those unable to wed in Israel because civil and non-Orthodox Jewish weddings performed there are not legally recognized include 284,000 gays and lesbians, 13,000 non-Orthodox converts to Judaism and various others, according to Hiddush.

A poll conducted for the group found that 64 percent of Jewish-Israelis supports “official recognition of all types of marriage,” including same-sex partnerships.

Hiddush reported that only 45 countries in the world, most of them Muslim, have marriage policies as restrictive as Israel’s.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.