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Israeli rabbis are not allowing “unpure” Jews marry “pure” Jews:
The rabbinate says that Mr Tarosyan cannot prove he is Jewish according to its strict standards and therefore should not marry Ms Samosvatov, who is considered a proper Jew.
Mr Tarosyan, aged 34, who moved to Israel from Moscow in 1995, called his treatment by the rabbis “humiliating”.
“In Russia we were hated because we were Jews and here in Israel we are discriminated against as Russians,” he said.
It’s this kind of crap that happens when you have religion in control of marriage:
“Civil marriages are not possible in Israel,” he said. “So the rabbis get to decide who can marry and who cannot.”
Israel has passed control of all matters relating to personal status — births, marriages and divorces, and deaths — to rabbis belonging to the strictest stream of Judaism, Orthodoxy.
Official figures show that as many as 350,000 Jews are classified by the rabbinate as having “no religion”, and are therefore unable to marry in Israel. Their only option is to wed abroad —the marriage is then recognised on their return.
Once again, religion is holding back basic moral progress.
I have an idea — just let people marry. It doesn’t matter if one is white and one is black. It doesn’t matter if one is Catholic and one is Protestant. It doesn’t matter if they are both men or women. And it doesn’t matter if one is 79% Jewish and the other is 43% Jewish. If they want to get married, let them!
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15 Comments
It doesn’t really matter whether it’s Israel or Saudi Arabia, those both countries are FUBAR.
I want to marry that cat. It’s hot!
Just another one of religions greatest hits. I agree with you completely on this one Daniel. Mark
Exactly. Everyone should have the right to marry whomever they want an go through a bitter divorce just like the rest of us….
I think this is fantastic.
It just helps demonstrate that religion is just a sham.
It’s a huge political thing in Israel. The problem is that because of our rather screwed political system a small group like the ultra religious (maybe 10% of the population) can be the balance of the coalition and therefore blackmail the government and kill any law to separate the legal aspect of marriage from the religious one. However its going to come back and bite them on the ass. What happening now is that many couples who have no problem to get married in Israel and that if there was a civil marriage option would have gone through the religious ceremony similar to many non religious people in western countries who do a religious ceremony in addition to being registered by the civil autorities, out of some respect to family tradition or to make their grandma happy, are making a point of not going on with it but rather go to Cyprus and get marry there just to take a stand. By keeping this kind of behaviour these guys are just getting even people who are more traditional and still have some religious sympaty even if they dont observe every little stupid rule mad enough and hopefully soon that resentment will grow strong enough that the other political parties will realize that to keep bending over to any demand made by these A## holes is going to cost them the elections and get rid of all these religious crap in our civil law.
I think I should emphasize that it apparently isn’t just a matter that they can’t marry a recognized Jew but that they can’t marry anyone in Israel unless they formally convert to one of the recognized religions (and then they generally can marry only someone of the same faith). Conversion to Judaism must be strictly Orthodox and difficult to achieve.
Oddly enough same-sex marriages performed abroad in countries where it is legal are recognized in Israel.
The common denominator here is that each religion that got a little power use said power intolerantly, each one protecting purity of dogma over love.
This is exactly like the “not straight enough to marry” thing we have going on here in the States. Except most people here would view that okay and what’s in this article as not okay. Is there really a difference?
Me too, I agree 100%.
“Their only option is to wed abroad —the marriage is then recognised on their return.” Nicely hypocritical. I heard the same about Ireland (sorry, I don’t remember whether it’s Northern Ireland or Eire – but I’d guess Eire), back in the mid 80s – they didn’t allow divorced people to re-marry, but if they re-married elsewhere (ie, where it was allowed) the marriage would be recognised.
The religious parties would have loved to stop it but they can’t since Its a matter of international relationship. If you get married in country A and then move to country B they will always recognize your marriage and not force you to remarry. Therefore once you show up with a legal marriage certificate the Israeli government has no choice but to recognize it and register you as married. Hopefully the public pressure will force the politicians to make a civil marriage option avalible and then whoever want to go on with the religious ceremony of their choice are welcome to deal with what restriction this religion has and leave the rest of us out of their mess.
The U.S. does not recognize homosexual marriage, I don’t believe, even if the ceremony was preformed legally abroad.
Like i said before the fundies haven’t realized how the are damaging their own agenda by forcing religious marriage. Without this law the cases of israeli citizens who go abroad just to get married (as apposed to what most countries will see which is immigrants who came already married) wouldn’t be such a common scenario but since it is when the first gay couple who tried to have their marriage recognized and was refused appealed to the supreme court they had the large number of cases where people who can’t marry under israeli law had their marriage recognized when preformed under a different juristiction when the same restrictions don’t apply that the court ruled in their favor and ordered the government to recognize their marriage just like they do with any marriage of Israelis abroad.
Israel is the most rediculous place that calls itself a country in the modern world. Formed after one of the worst atrocities in the 20th centruary it has gone on to cause more pain, suffering and bullying to many more millions of people and over a much greater time scale than the Nazis ever did.
Yet the west arent as willing to destroy this country as they did Nazi Germany.
Places where religion is in charge and people are thown out of thier houses for being the wrong religion shouldnt be accepted or endorsed in the 21th centuary.