If I Had a Hammer...

[eumelia]

...I'd tear down a bunch of oppressive and ethnocratic institutions.

Israel does not have civil marriage. All marital laws fall under the various religious institutions, the Rabbinical Court and their Christian and Muslim equivalents. The Rabbinical court is also in charge of who is Halachically Jewish, which cosmologically speaking is whether you're born of a Jewish mother, or via (in Israel) Orthodox Conversion.

It's the Nuremberg laws that apply as to whether you're counted as a Jew through secular law... no really, that is the litmus test through which Jews can immigrate and claim citizenship in Israel.

Shocking.

Now, the thing is, this wouldn't be such a huge deal (though having no proper immigration laws are a pain and help retain the "Demographic War" against those dangerous Non-Jews who live among us) is all Jews (according to "Nuremberg") were treated as equal citizens under the law and were allowed to marry who ever the fuck they wanted.

But they can't. In fact no person of one religion can marry a person belonging to another religion.
If you're registered as having no religion, as many "Nuremberg" qualifying Jews are, because they come from former Soviet countries (in which the State "religion" was Atheism).

With that background knowledge, you'd think a civil marriage bill would be a good thing.

Wrong.

The civil marriage bill, as it stands, applied only to those registered as having "no religion" and the best part is... they can only marry each other!
Unlike what the political party pushing the bill, Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) says, this bill will not help topple down the Orthodox monopoly.
It will do the exact opposite! Now the Rabbinical Court doesn't even need to deal with those sub-humans (and make no mistake, any non-Jew, i.e. a Gentile, is considered a lesser human by these people) and still be able to control who people marry!
I mean, what's the point of it?
So now, there's yet another class of people and another court which will control people's relationships.

And hey, guess who doesn't get marriage and equal rights under this new law... that's right, same-sex couples get to keep their unregistered cohabitation and have fewer rights than other couples in the Holy Land.

This is a good time to mention, I actually oppose the privileged status of marriage and couple-hood in general, seeing as the basic unit of society is the individual and two individuals who decide to create a household should not get more perks than other housing arrangements or families not of the nuclear model.

Yeah, I'm that radical.

The day marriage and the stupid contract of "serious relationships" is abolished will be a day I'll be doing my "Dance Dance Revolution".

Comments

[viklikesfic]

*hi five*

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the marriage institution as a legal model or as the One True Social Unit. I'm all for alternative family models, etc. And on the other hand, when marriage is the unit by which all things are measured, it tends to leave a lot more people out than is obvious at first glance. Frustrating how things are going in Israel... and pretty much everywhere :-/

Incidentally, there's a book by Nancy Polikoff called Beyond (Gay and Straight) Marriage that I really recommend. If I remember correctly, it focuses mostly on US law, but it makes good generally applicable points about marriage screws all sorts of people over--gay people, single parents, people whose cultures prefer larger social units, the elderly, etc etc.

[eumelia]

*hi five*

Yep, Prof. Polikoff was in Israel last year and gave a talk about her book, which I attended and heard the Q and A.
It really is very US law focused and not that applicable locally, though the philosophy behind is a good one and definitely one I like and was influenced by her talk.

Israel is "special" in that that religious marriage is the law and not a choice like in other Western countries.

[ironed_orchid]

they can only marry each other!

Because clearly this will solve the age old problem of how to educate teh childrens!

I figure if people are going to get married, then that choice should be legally available to all.

[eumelia]

Mixing is a dangerous and ungodly thing to do!

/sarcasm.

[majoline]

This is crazy! Thank you for writing about this and shedding light because otherwise the rest of us would not have known that Israel is like this.

Thank you for teaching me.

I'm sorry that you have to live with this and if you had a hammer, I would have one with you.

[eumelia]

Yeah, Israel like to portray itself as a democracy, when in fact it's a liberal ethnocratic proto-theocracy. More and more we're becoming like the neighbours we're "supposed" to hate.

[ajnabieh]

they can only marry each other!

BRB, dying of laughter. Oh, Israeli domestic politics. I didn't even know Israel was working on a civil marriage bill...of course it's this level of crazy. I'm a depressed reformist much of the time, so at least it's something, but it's just so hilariously bad at the same time...

We're being amused right now because it's Census time in the US, and our family (which consists of two illegally married people, their baby, and one unrelated adult) is highly confusing to the form (the unrelated adult is a person of color, which means if we don't put him as person 1, our household will be coded as white, but if we do, then we can't explain the relationship between me and my wife or between us and our kid...) Hey, government? Those boxes? They don't fit.

[bellakara]

Hi, I'm one of your new subscribers. I found this and your newest post very interesting. I don't know an awful lot about Israel so I'm very interested to read more about the country and your life.