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The case against civil marrage for Jews.

There has recently been a push in Isreal for creating civil marrages. In this brief article I will detail some of the points why this is a terrible idea.

First since civil marrage is a common practice for Jews in the diaspora, we can look for an example how has it faired for non-israel (living in Israel) Jews.

In the U.S. assimilation is growing at a high percent. At the same time there is a swing in the opposite direction with Jews searching for their roots and embracing more of their Jewish tradition (albeit not orthodox Judiaism per se). Many of these Jews are finding out that they may not be Jews at all, sometime one or both of their parents are not Jewish, but because they have common Jewish last names they think they are. The opposite is true where a person thinking they are a non-Jew turns out to be a Jew.

Whatever you hold on the issue of what makes a Jew a Jew, the conclusion is that civil marrages for Jews has created: CONFUSION at best, and at worse crisis.

In Israel where being Israeli is considered more important than being Jewish, and where a large sector of the population doesn't accept Rabbinical Law, the outcome of civil marrages in Israel has the potential for becoming explosive. NonJews will think they are Jewish just by virtue of being Israeli, but a good segment of the population will not accept them as Jewish. (Dati, Dati Liumi, Charadi, masorati etc.) this is not limited to just the Charadi, population as some people erroneously think. Ask a kippah serugah person "If your mother isn't Jewish, are you Jewish?" and see the response. So here in Israel the potential for strife exists.

A argument in favor of civil marrages in Israel is that non Jews who want a civil marrage won't be able to.

I hate to break it to you but the majority of the worlds populations choose a religous wedding based on their religon. This means that a christian is more likely to get married in a church, a moslem in a mosque etc.

And those who get secular civil marrages anyways, why would they be interested in being married in ISRAEL? The secular non-Jew in more likely to not support Israel and not be interested in coming here. Take note Israels biggest supporters are religous chritians from the American south. And if a Moslem wants to get married here (to a moslem) there are plenty of mosques here to do it in. (even unfortunitly one on the temple mount).

To sum up this argument. The main reason a non-jew would be interested in having a civil marrage in Israel, is for the purpose of intermarrage.

So whats wrong with intermarrage, anyways.

This is like the artist who hires an assistant: the artist draws the most unbleiveable picture and as he draws it he has his assitant erase what he draws. When the artist and his assistant are done, he doesn't even have a blank sheet of paper, but rather a smudged up paper which is of little use.

Intermarrage erases Jews and what is good about Judaism. A Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman, his children are not Jew, he is a human eraser.

Ok but I don't care if I am Jewish, or my Kids, the issue is money.

Israel loses tons of tourist dollars because of no civil marrage here.

Well Isreal also loses tons of money from terrorist attacks. Whenever Isreal blockades the arab areas and doesn't let arabs enter Israel, there is a huge drop in terror attacks. So according to this logic we should blockade the arabs forever? But we don't and infact no one advocates this move (even the hardest right wing fanatic), since money isn't the only factor involved in terrorism.

To put it clearly, there are lots of avenues for Isreal to make money, but civil marrages with all the potential risks, and few benefits not a good source.

Also there is another issue, in Russia it was common before a number of years for non-jews with some money to advertise in news papers asking to marry a Jew so that they could move to Israel, since only being married to a Jew was a way to move here and then gain benefits they could only dream of in Russia. In my Ulpan was a couple who openly said they did this. Their children may marry Jews and Israel will end up with a large population of non-Jews who think they are Jews. (unfortuently this is already starting to be the case)

There are cases of arabs marrying Jews, leaving open the potential for the child of such a marrage being Jewish, going to Israeli schools and possibly being a terrorist, not such a far fetched scenero.