I continue, despite nearly 22 years of living in Israel, to be flabbergasted at the (select any of the following adjectives) stupidity, naivete, incompetence, ignorance and close-mindedness of our Knesset members.
 
Yesterday I attended a meeting of the Knesset Law Committee where a bill to legalize civil unions was discussed. Such unions would grant couples most rights enjoyed by married couples.
 
Many countries have such a law. In some, it allows couples to choose this path rather than a traditional religious ceremony. In others it may be augmented by a ceremony. Still elsewhere, it provides a solution for those unable to marry under state law.
 
Here in Israel all marriage is religious (read: Orthodox for Jews). This means that two Jews may marry via the official rabbinate. Two Catholics may marry in the church. Muslims may also marry one another in their faith tradition.
 
But Israel has over 340,000 citizens unable to marry at all. Imagine, a democratic country where such a sizable portion of the population must travel to Cyprus, or elsewhere in the world, to be registered as a married couple. These are mostly citizens who immigrated under the Law of Return but who are not halachically Jewish (not Jews in the eyes of Jewish law). They may live as Jews in every way, but they were not born to a Jewish mother and conversion in Israel is, even when one is willing to be demeaned by the process, nearly impossible.
 
I do not favor intermarriage. I work hard to see that a Jew will choose to marry a Jew. But it is just silly, presuming you do not favor a theocracy, for intermarriage to be illegal (of course, that is, unless you have the money to fly to Cyprus for the day). But even more silly is that there is no way for those with no official religion to marry at all. There is also no way for same-sex couples to marry (Israel will register the unions of gay couples married in countries that provide for this). There is no way for one of the 340,000 who may fall in love with a classmate, or a fellow soldier serving in the IDF, to wed.
 
The current situation does not prevent intermarriage. It only makes it more troublesome and costly by necessitating a trip abroad. Thousands of Israeli Jewish couples who would be eligible to marry in Israel also choose to go abroad owing to a strong distaste for the official rabbinate (Many will then have a Jewish ceremony performed by a Masorti or Reform rabbi. Such ceremonies, without the civil wedding abroad, will not be registered by the state).
 
A clear solution to this mess would be to pass legislation enabling civil unions. This would not lead to Mamzerut, as many authorities hold that a civil union does not have the same standing as a religious ceremony. Such unions would allow anyone of age to marry the person of their choice, as long as they were single and of age.
 
Most Jewish couples would still decide on a traditional marriage - but this way it would be by a rabbi of their choosing and not necessarily one who subscribes to a brand of Judaism wholly foreign to the couple.
 
This would allow the 340,000 to marry in the country in which they reside.
 
But this is not the law committee chair David Rotem tried to push through in a quick session. He proposed a law which he, himself, admitted was badly flawed. He proposed that only those without any religious identity at all would be allowed to join in a civil union, and only to one another. Estimates are that this would benefit, at best, a hundred couples a year- but most likely far fewer.
 
Rotem suggested that a more complete law could be passed in about fifteen months. But that is nothing more than political posturing.
 
Even worse, this new law would allow the Interior Ministry and the Orthodox Rabbinical Courts to determine who is not Jewish. Let me remind the readers of this blog that there are hundreds of people who have been stymied in their efforts to make aliya by the Interior Ministry's delays in determining religion.
 
The Rabbinical Courts have showed their contempt for the state and for the law by invalidating conversions performed by Israel's own Orthodox rabbis and by delaying for long periods their determination of a person's status even in cases where they were clearly Jewish.
 
Yet Rotem would empower these very bodies to decide who are the chosen few lepers of society who may have a civil union.
 
Pathetic? Absurd? Ridiculous? You make the call.
 
There are those who see this very limited law as a crack that will open up the doors to others in the future.  I see that as wishful thinking. My view is that this is little more than a bone thrown to the Yisrael Beiteinu party so it can claim to its Russian supporters to have moved the issue of civil unions ahead.
 
The time has come for real legislation allowing alternative in marriage for all citizens of Israel.
 
I can already hear those who claim, "But this is a Jewish state." Guess what? This may a Jewish state, but are we going to leave so many of our citizens, many of whom made aliya under the Law of Return, without a way to marry? I sure hope not.