MERCAZ USA Newsletter — Fall 2011

Israel Sees First Civil Union

Earlier this spring, an Israeli couple made history when they became the first to be "married" within the framework of a new civil union law that the Knesset had passed last year.

The law allows couples to register with the Interior Ministry as married "partners" when neither individual is registered as Jewish in the Population Registry. This would apply to two citizens of Israel who are both non-Jewish Russian immigrants who want to marry each other and who are not interested in a Russian Orthodox religious wedding.

While twenty-five Israeli couples have already met the criteria to enter into the new civil union status, the new law does not address that larger question raised by the supporters of civil marriage: what to do when one member of the marriage-seeking couple is Jewish and the other is not. Among the latter group are more than 300,000 Russian immigrants to Israel who, though dependents of Jews, are not halachically Jewish themselves.

Currently, as per the Status Quo agreement of 1947, there is no option to perform a marriage in Israel in such cases where only one partner is registered as Jewish. Instead, couples unable to marry in Israel must go abroad for a civil marriage which, upon return to Israel, is registered with the Interior Ministry. The prime foreign location is Cyprus where, it is estimated, 1,000 civil marriages involving Israelis take place each year.

Ironically, even being considered a little "Jewish" (safek yehudi) excludes someone from the new civil union law. Thus, while Conservative/Masorti and Reform/Progressive converts to Judaism – both those whose conversions are performed abroad before aliyah and thus who convert in Israel after arrival – are not considered Jewish enough to secure the right to be married in Israel by representatives of the Chief Rabbinate, they are also deemed, at the same time, "too Jewish" by the same authorities to be included within the definition of a civil marriage.

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