Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid spoke out on Tuesday 2 Adar 5773 against permitting the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to maintain control over marriage in Eretz Yisrael.
“I will do anything to bring a civil marriage alternative to the state. The rabbinate’s control on marriage and divorce is an offense to every free person and it must stop.”
Lapid explained that issues of Judaism do not belong in the political arena and he will do everything possible to change today’s reality, to remove marriage from “petty politics”, part of the ongoing effort to redefine religion and state, the religious status quo as it has become known.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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13 Responses
“The rabbinate’s control on marriage and divorce” is the greatest accomplishment of it’s founders, and possibly of the founders of the state. Without it secular Israel would be overrun with mamzerim and goyim. We would become two umos. Even the Eida Chareidis acts as an arm of the chief rabbinate in terms of registration of marriage and divorce. This could potentially be more important than all other issues. He’s playing with fire!
the son of tomy lapid-a leopard doesn’t change his spots.
This guy is nuts
This guys gonna end up like his father H’rosha.
This affects the Dati Leumi camp (with its paradigm of Israel as a Jewish state in which Torah, or at least their interpretation, is the central and unifying culture – similar to the role of a state church in pre-WWI European societies).
From a hareidi perspective, it is better that the hiloni marriages be as obviously treff as possible since hilonim, even when married, often engage in activities that would lead to mamzerim being born – unless of course their marriages are invalid. In America, many of our rabbanim has argued that a marriage between people who have no intention of conducting married life according to “Daas Moshe v’Yisrael” is void since the parties didn’t intend to be married.
#1 – I’ve had a great deal of contact with non-religious Jews over the last 50 years, and I can assure you that if all their marriages are “kosher”, the children (and its now the third generation since the “sexual revolution”) are probably at least safek mamzerim. Better to be skeptical of the validity of marriages by non-orthodox Jews (who never intended to hold by halacha) than to have to conclude that most non-frum Jews are likely to be mamzerim. The zionist rabbinate makes a fool of itself by asking non-frum people to go through a formal Jewish marriage ceremony when they know the people regard it as a big joke and are laughing behind their back.
What about the people who were already married? Now they go for a civil divorce. The woman, who becomes chozer b’tshuva, wants to marry a frum guy but now she is an aguna because her husband doesn’t want to give her a proper get.
this is a bigger issue than the draft issue. in fact he wants the conservative and reform religions to have equal footing with orthodox judaism. Everyone is hung up on the draft issue. where deep down we know that they will compromise because they dont wnat us. This is tthe real issue that they want. They would like to take the “jewish” part of Israel from the strictly religious and dilute it.
#6 – What you say about non religious marriages may be true, especially in the US where they are performed by reform and conservative “rabbis”. The situation in Eretz Yisroel could be different al pi halacha for a number of reasons, a lot of details could make a difference and it should be in the hands of halachic experts. Even more so with divorces. The “zionist rabbinate” includes many real talmidei chachamim. Rav Elyashiv zatzal and Rav Waldenberg zatzal were dayanim with the “zionist rabbinate”. Whether or not the kidushin are valid should be determined only by talmidei chachomim in inyonei even ho’ezer.
So Lapid wants it to be Palistine, Judaism clean, with a Jewish name, is he a spy or a traiter ???
#6 – I would like to qualify what I wrote above in #9 where I suggested I might agree with you to some extent.
Even Rav Moshe Feinstein, who was meikal bedieved in such cases, still, lechatchila he required giving a get, since Rav Henkin was machmir. The question of mamzerim is different since there is a rov, vehameivin yovin.
Each case is different and has to be considered individually, and one cannot make blanket statements, especially in a forum like this.
I wonder what his self-affirmed charedi party member, MK Dovy Lipman, has to say about this position of the party…
Based on statistics and studies of the behavior of non-orthodox Jews, it can be assumed that many routinely engage in extra-marital relationships. Some studies suggest that in secular populations, as many as 10% of the babies are not the child of the man listed as a father.
Since the characteristic of being a mamzer comes from either parent, the percentage of safek mamzerim increases rapidly each generation. At a certain point, it becomes probable that most non-frum Jews will be mamzerim, or rather, safek mamzerim.
Two factors mitigate. There are many shitas that would hold that a marriage involving people who have no intent to have a Jewish ceremony, even if they use a proper kiddushin, a huppah and a standard kesubah – is not a valid marriage. No valid marriage, end of problem. The kids are kosher regardless of what the mother does and with whom.
In addition, there is significant intermarriage among non-orthodox Jews, and has been for several generations. This of course mitigates the damage of possible mamzerim since a non-Jew can’t be a mamzer, and once it gets totally impossible to check ancestry, we can say “safek goy, safek mamzer” – let them have a nominal conversion (like the Ethiopians) and the problem is resolved.
However by trying to “coerce” secular Jews into having valid Jewish marriages in an environment with marital fidelity is not enforced – is a recipe for creating a large class of mamzerim.