Re: PERO ELLOS NO SON RACISTAS...QUIEN DIJO


VivaChavez wrote:
(04/21/2006)

Changing Israel's Marriage Law
Steven V. Mazie
Israel's 17th Knesset has a new draft constitution to consider, and
the question of marriage law is the most contentious issue.

Israel is governed by a series of 11 basic laws and an unofficial
"status quo" agreement on religion-state issues. Of the four main
elements of the status quo - kashrut in state kitchens, Shabbat as
the official day of rest, an independent educational stream for the
ultra-Orthodox and Jewish marriage in the hands of the rabbinate -
marriage is by far the most divisive. It is also, problematically but
not coincidentally, the only status quo provision on which the recently
completed constitutional draft is silent.

Whatever success this monopoly has had in imposing a single marriage
standard for all Jews, it pales in comparison to the policy's failure
to consolidate the Israeli Jewish community into a people that sees
itself as a unified whole. Nominal racial unity comes at the cost of
embitterment, antipathy and enduring, deep division.

The present arrangement, inherited from the British Mandate and before
that the Ottoman millet system, gives the Orthodox rabbinate authority
over fundamental life events of Israeli Jews: marriage, divorce and
burial.

As a result, non-Orthodox Jewish couples are forced to submit to an
Orthodox marriage ceremony with an Orthodox rabbi and are compelled to
attend classes on family purity. No Israeli may marry outside her faith
community. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens from the former
Soviet Union who are not Jewish or whose Jewish ancestry is in doubt
are unable to marry at all inside Israel. And more women every year are
chained to men they wish to divorce but who will not give them the get
required by Jewish law.

Despite these problems, Israel's Religious Zionist and haredi
communities insist that holding on to the marriage reins is necessary
for Jewish continuity. If Jews are allowed to marry outside Orthodox
parameters, they say, a "split in the nation" will result.

There are two related worries: intermarriage and illegitimacy. Children
of marriages forbidden by Jewish law, or halacha (for example, unions
between a kohen and a divorcee, between close relatives, or between a
man and a previously married woman who did not undergo a halachic
divorce) are considered mamzerim. They and their offspring, stigmatized
with an irrevocable brand of illegitimacy, may marry only other
mamzerim. A split in the nation, the argument goes, will follow:
mamzerut will increase dramatically and it will be difficult to keep
track of mamzerim to ensure they do not wed non-mamzer Jews.

Two facts belie this supposed quandary. First, Israelis already are
marrying outside the bounds of the rabbinate. Thousands of couples
exercise the Cyprus option every year and choose to get married abroad
in a civil ceremony rather than submit to the Orthodox strictures in
Israel.

Second, haredim carefully examine the ancestry of potential spouses and
rarely marry outside their sub-communities. This means that the "my
grandson won't be able to marry your granddaughter" lament is
largely a red herring.

More fundamentally, the vagaries of Jewish law actually point to the
rabbinate's marriage monopoly as a cause of, not a solution to,
mamzerut. According to halacha, the children of an unmarried Jewish
couple are not mamzerim. The problem arises only when a woman marries
according to Jewish law, separates from her husband without securing a
valid Jewish divorce and remarries. But since civil marriage is not
considered a valid marriage according to Jewish law, the child of a
couple married civilly is perfectly legitimate.

Mandating religious marriage for secular Jews, then, amounts to
"putting a stumbling block before the blind." It may exacerbate
rather than solve the problem of Jews becoming "two peoples" who
are unable to wed.

What would happen if the marriage monopoly were broken? Many secular
Jews would get married civilly, Reform and Conservative couples would
fashion their own ceremonies officiated by their own rabbis, and
Orthodox rabbis would perform ceremonies only for willing couples.
Would the harm to Jewish continuity be grave?

Haredim will say yes, because the nation would be "split into two."
But reason and experience dictate that when the state attempts to
compel the conformity of citizens, it fails to achieve meaningful
unity. Forcing citizens to undergo rituals they reject, in fact, is
more likely to lead to resentment and disunity. And that is exactly
what we see in the Israeli case. After nearly 60 years of statehood,
the rift between Israel's religious and secular publics has never
been wider.

Unfortunately, there are few signs that the haredi community is coming
around on the question, despite former Chief Rabbi Eliayahu
Bakshi-Doron's statement in favor of civil marriage in 2004.

Haredim should take this opportunity to rethink their position. If the
ultra-Orthodox want to bring secular Israeli Jews closer to Judaism, if
they seek to foster true Jewish unity, they will have more success
through persuasion than through coercion. And with a provision for
equal marriage rights in a future constitution, Israel will go a long
way toward establishing itself as a Jewish state with democratic
credentials.

The marriage monopoly only alienates non-Orthodox Jews from Judaism and
deprives citizens of basic human rights. n

Steven V. Mazie, a professor of political science at Bard High School
Early College in Manhattan, is author of "Israel's Higher Law:
Religion and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State."

Special To The Jewish Week



http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=4987&print=yes

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