Where ‘I Do’ Meets ‘No, You Don’t’

Religion, not romance, drove Alon and Einat Bilu to get married in a quaint little town in the Italian countryside.

Although they are Israeli Jews, the couple objected to the only sanctioned wedding rite open to them in their homeland, an Orthodox ceremony in which Einat would be presented to Alon as his rightfully purchased property. So instead of a rabbi, they put themselves in the hands of a travel agent.

For $750, the couple declared their commitment before two friends and the beaming mayor of Montaione, who pronounced them husband and wife, then gave them a colorful certificate attesting to their matrimonio civile.

The Jewish state is among the few democracies in the world -- some say the only one -- not to offer its citizens the option of civil marriage. Only religious weddings can be performed: Jew marrying Jew, Christian marrying Christian, Muslim marrying Muslim in front of their respective clergy.

For the secular, or even for the observant who fall in love with someone of another faith, there is no way to solemnize their relationships in a legally recognized manner. They must either get married in another country -- as thousands do every year -- or live together with none of the benefits of being legally wed.

The ban on civil marriage has been in force since 1953, five years after Israel was founded.

The issue cuts to the heart of Israel’s existential dilemma, its difficulties in striving to be both a democratic and Jewish state at the same time.

Those who back the ban on civil marriage say it is imperative to preserve Israel’s Jewishness, to ensure the survival of a people and faith that enemies have tried to extirpate for centuries.

But many Israelis are becoming increasingly critical of what they see as a form of religious coercion in a modern society built in large part by people who fled oppression.

“This puts us back to medieval times,” said Tommy Lapid, a member of parliament and a Holocaust survivor.

“Marriage to whomever you want to marry is one of the basic human freedoms. You don’t have a single democracy in the world today where no civil marriage exists. Even Catholic countries like Italy, Spain and Ireland are allowing civil marriages nowadays.”

Lapid is the head of Shinui, a political party whose liberal views and surprisingly strong showing in recent elections have given supporters of civil marriage their best shot at easing the ban, if not completely overturning it.

Although secular and liberal Jews now make up the majority of Israel’s population, rabbinical law still holds a monopoly on many areas of social practice, setting up a constant clash between concepts of individual liberty and communal identity over issues ranging from burial rites to keeping kosher during Jewish holidays.

The debate over marriage has become especially acute and emotional over the last decade, a period of massive immigration into Israel, mostly by hundreds of thousands of refugees from the former Soviet Union.

Many of these new residents are Jewish but not observant, or are Jewish but cannot properly prove their lineage, which leaves them unable to marry in an Orthodox ceremony even if they want one.

“I think 80% of them have a problem” when it comes to getting married, said Irit Rosenblum, a lawyer who is spearheading a campaign to put civil marriage on the books. “There is no salvation for them. They have no options according to Israeli law.”

Rabbis’ Argument

Drawing on Old Testament statutes, the rabbis who have the final say on religious matters argue that God recognizes only Jewish marriages conducted according to Orthodox tradition.

Those traditions reflect the patriarchal values of the ancient world. For example, during a wedding, the groom signs a symbolic contract that in effect grants him possession of his bride, who remains veiled until “ownership” is officially transferred from father to husband. At the end of the ceremony, to celebrate their union, the husband is allowed to smash the glass that symbolizes mourning for the destruction of the ancient Jewish temple; the bride can merely watch.

Only husbands can seek divorces under Orthodox Jewish law. In addition, if a woman becomes a widow while childless, her late husband’s brother technically has the right to wed her if he chooses -- a prerogative that has led to cases of extortion of women by brothers-in-law who refuse to release them from their bond unless they fork over money.

Men surnamed Cohen, believed to be descendants of a priestly caste, are not permitted to marry divorcees. Children born of adultery are still designated “bastards,” or mamzer, and can marry only another mamzer. Interfaith relationships are taboo.

And ceremonies conducted by Conservative and Reform rabbis -- the two largest Jewish denominations in the U.S. -- are not valid if performed in Israel. For administrative purposes, the state recognizes such marriages if they are performed overseas, as well as civil marriages conducted in foreign countries, but not when such weddings take place within its own borders.

The rules on marriage are enforced by Israel’s small but influential Orthodox community, whose political power far outweighs its size.

Right-wing factions such as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud Party count on religious Jews to help them stay in power, while left-wing politicians often refrain from criticizing religious authorities for fear of being branded traitors to Israel’s Jewish heritage.

That a highly conservative, super-religious minority is allowed to control so fundamental an aspect of life as marriage infuriates Rosenblum.

“It’s like the Amish. Imagine if they were running your country,” Rosenblum said at an interview in her Tel Aviv office.

Supporters of the status quo warn that the Jewish nation must adhere to the traditions of its faith or risk diluting its religious identity to the point of meaninglessness.

“When you accept the discipline, say, of the Catholic Church, then you’re tied to what they say,” said Rabbi Nahum Rabinowitz, the head of an Orthodox yeshiva, or seminary, outside Jerusalem. “A secular government has no right to interfere in the affairs of each religious sect.”

The government’s only responsibility, he said, would perhaps be to provide contracts for couples to sign that would bind them together legally and offer many of the benefits of marriage, but would not legitimize or consecrate their relationship.

Any public ceremony in addition to that, religious or secular, would be the couple’s choice but would have no practical or legal significance, he said.

Critics dismiss the idea, contending that it still discriminates against the thousands of couples who want to pledge their lives to each other and call it a marriage but who either don’t like the Orthodox rite or can’t have an Orthodox ceremony because one of the couple is not a recognized Jew.

Lapid scoffs at arguments that allowing civil marriages would weaken the Jewish character of Israel.

“You have the biggest, richest, most successful Jewish community in the world in the United States, where they have civil marriage. We should have the same system here,” he said. “We should have a separation of religion and state.”

Some of the restrictions on marriage could be eased by the end of this year under the new Israeli interior minister, Avraham Poraz, who is a member of Lapid’s Shinui party. For example, a form of civil marriage may be made available to interfaith couples.

But a total reversal of the ban on civil marriage remains politically impossible.

In spite of matrimonial laws designed to shore up Jewish identity, the rate of traditional Jewish weddings in Israel has been steadily decreasing.

Each year, about 28,000 couples tie the knot in traditional Orthodox Jewish fashion, about the same number as 25 years ago. But within that time, the population of Israel has grown by more than half.

Now, one in five couples travels abroad to get hitched, catered to by a travel industry that has created a niche market.

Cyprus Packages

Most of these couples fly to nearby Cyprus, which has become the matrimonial equivalent of Las Vegas for Israelis. That adds up to about 35 million shekels (nearly $8 million) invested in the Cypriot economy each year purely by Israelis getting married, Rosenblum said.

For about $1,000, King Tours in Tel Aviv offers a Cyprus wedding getaway package that takes care of airfare, taxes, transportation to city hall and all relevant paperwork. The agency advises a two-night stay, but a couple can hop on a plane unmarried and come back to Israel as husband and wife within a day if they choose.

“When we began offering these packages in 1983, we would have one couple a month. But with the massive wave of immigration to Israel in 1989, our service flourished,” said the agency’s owner, David Canaan.

“Today the economic situation is bad,” he said, “but at our peak we used to serve anywhere between 20 to 40 couples every month.”

Naama Galili and Ilan Shapira signed up for Canaan’s services this month after having been together for eight years. Both are Jewish but not observant, and an Orthodox wedding held little appeal.

“Instead of paying the rabbinate for a religious ceremony, we’re investing the money in ourselves and intend to enjoy traveling through Cyprus by Jeep after the ceremony,” said Galili, 31.

Italian Ceremony

The Bilus, Einat and Alon, decided to go somewhere different and headed to Tuscany, in the Italian countryside, in October 2001.

Officials from the town of Montaione greeted them with open arms at their simple civil ceremony, which had to be translated from Italian into English so that the couple knew what their vows actually meant.

“They were so excited, as if it was the first time,” Einat, 29, recalled. “Maybe she was a new mayor. It’s a very small town.”

A scientist, Einat had rejected the traditional Orthodox rite on the grounds that it was too “chauvinistic and old-fashioned.”

Friends and relatives told her not to be so wound up. Just do it, they said. “Why do you care about it so much?” they asked.

Her answer: “Because you have to swear, and everybody says it’s so important.”

So she and Alon made their way to a country neither had visited in order to solemnize their relationship.

They registered their made-in-Italy marriage with the Israeli government after their return.

But to appease parents on both sides, the couple also held a religious ceremony in Israel a few months later, a big bash for 350 revelers.

Officiating was a Reform rabbi, who read from a more modern liturgy as he stood under the canopy and joined Einat Ben-Binyamin and Alon Bilu in holy matrimony.

Then both of them smashed the glass.