A Large Majority Of Israeli Jews Are Anti-Ultra Orthodox – OpEd

Two-thirds of the Israeli Jewish public supports lifting the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly on Jewish weddings to include Reform, Conservative, civil ceremonies; only ultra-Orthodox, far-right voters oppose.

A poll released mid-august 2024, found that half of Israeli Jews would choose not to marry in an Orthodox ceremony if they could, with 22 percent opting for civil marriage and 13% preferring a Conservative or Reform marriage.

The Smith Research Institute for Hiddush, an organization that promotes freedom of religion, found that the vast majority of those who said they would choose an Orthodox ceremony identified as ultra-Orthodox or Modern Orthodox. Among secular respondents, only 15% said they would choose an Orthodox ceremony.

The poll found that women were less likely (44%) to choose an Orthodox ceremony than men (55%) and expressed more support for other marriage options including through an online marriage service provided by Utah County, in Utah, USA.

Among the requirements to legally marry in Israel, women must attend at least one “kallah (bride) class” where they are taught about Orthodox Jewish law surrounding menstrual cycles and they must immerse themselves in a mikveh (ritual pool) before the wedding. There are no such requirements for men.

Regardless of which ceremony they would personally choose, 67% of Israeli Jews responded that they would support the legalization of more types of marriage, including civil, Conservative, and Reform Jewish weddings.

Conversion to Judaism is another aspect of the sins of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties — the Sephardi Shas party and Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism party — demand that the future coalition pass a law submitted last year by Shas parliamentarians, which would effectively overturn liberal High Court rulings.

The “State Conversion Law,” as it was called, would give official recognition only to conversions performed through the government’s Conversion Authority, which only recognizes conversions from the Chief Rabbinate, a small number of non-Rabbinate ultra-Orthodox conversion courts, and a military-affiliated program that converts IDF soldiers.

This would not affect recognition of non-Orthodox conversions performed abroad, which have long been accepted by Israel for the purposes of citizenship. The bill would also not work retroactively, meaning those who have already received citizenship based on these alternative conversions would not have it revoked.

The head of the Reform movement in Israel, Anna Kislanski, slammed the Likud party’s reported concession, saying such a bill would alienate progressive Jewry. “The shameful surrender by Likud to the demand of the extremist ultra-Orthodox parties to pass a law that would end recognition of Reform conversions in Israel will have only one result: In its 75th year, the State of Israel will cease to be the homeland of the entire Jewish people,” Kislanski said.

“We call on the prime minister to continue to accept the thousands of women and men who have chosen to tie their fate to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel through respectful Reform conversion and to prevent a situation of [Israel] divorcing itself from liberal Jewry, which represents the majority of the Jewish people,” she said.

According to the Reform Judaism movement, over 300 people convert through Reform rabbis each year, though most of these conversions are not for the purpose of Israeli citizenship. Labor Knesset member Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi, also accused Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu of hypocrisy, as his second wife, Fleur Cates, converted to Judaism through the Conservative movement.

“When Netanyahu’s second wife went through a Conservative conversion, that was ‘kosher’ enough for him. Today, he sells out the unity of the Jewish people and the connection to the Diaspora for an unkosher and dangerous agreement,” Kariv said.