Recognition of Civil Marriage in Israel

Israel's marriage law developed from the Ottoman millet system, under which recognized religious communities administered personal-status matters for their members. The British Mandate continued this structure through measures including the Marriage and Divorce (Registration) Ordinance of 1919, and Israel retained it after independence.[4] The continued application of Jewish religious law to Jewish marriage and divorce was also connected to the 1947 Status Quo Agreement.[3]

For Jews, the foundational statute is the Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction (Marriage and Divorce) Law of 1953, which provides that marriage and divorce between Jews in Israel take place according to Jewish law.[1] Jews therefore cannot contract an ordinary civil marriage inside Israel. Members of other recognized religious communities marry through their respective religious institutions, whose tribunals exercise jurisdiction over marriage and divorce subject to specified exceptions.[5]

The only domestic marriages with legal standing and eligibility for registration are generally those performed under the religious rules of a recognized community.[2] Some couples hold unofficial Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or secular ceremonies outside the Chief Rabbinate's authority, but the Ministry of Interior does not register those ceremonies as marriages.[2]

Only Orthodox rabbis are authorized to conduct legally recognized Jewish marriage ceremonies in Israel. Recognition as Jewish under civil legislation, including for immigration or population-registry purposes, does not necessarily establish that the Chief Rabbinate will accept a person as Jewish for marriage.[3] Immigrants admitted under the Law of Return who are not considered Jewish under halakha have consequently used marriage abroad as an alternative.[6]

An INSS article published in 2018 stated that people who underwent Reform or Conservative conversions, and most of their offspring, could not marry through the existing Israeli rites even though those conversions were recognized for some other purposes.[7] Jewish law also prevents a kohen from marrying a female convert. David Ellenson described conducting an unofficial ceremony for such a couple after the bride had completed an Orthodox conversion, writing, "I was happy and proud to perform the wedding and sorry only that in the State of Israel it had no legal force."[8]

Same-sex couples have no marriage route through a recognized religious institution. Interfaith couples, people whose religious status is disputed, nonbelievers, and members of unrecognized religious groups may also be unable to use the ordinary religious system.[3][4]

Israelis unable or unwilling to marry through the domestic religious system commonly marry abroad and submit the foreign certificate for entry in the Population Registry. The legal foundation for distinguishing registration from substantive validity is the Supreme Court's Funk-Schlesinger precedent. In the government's account of that ruling, a registry clerk records the status shown in a public document rather than deciding the underlying legal validity of the marriage.[5]

The Library of Congress reports that a foreign marriage is valid under Israeli private international-law rules when it was lawful under the spouses' applicable personal-status law. Israeli courts have recognized marriages abroad between Israeli citizens or residents who were eligible to marry under their personal-status laws and whose marriage was valid where celebrated. More difficult questions remain where the spouses' personal-status law requires compliance with religious rules.[3]

Available figures illustrate the importance of the foreign-marriage route. In 2013, 8,939 marriages conducted abroad were registered where at least one spouse was an Israeli resident, compared with 52,705 marriages conducted by authorized religious institutions in Israel that year.[3] In 2021, 7,091 couples registered marriages conducted abroad.[2][9] Calcalist reported that 7,550 couples were registered in 2015 as having married in civil ceremonies abroad and 6,750 in 2019; approximately 1,900 couples in which at least one partner was Jewish married in Cyprus in 2019.[10]

Martin Edelman described marriage abroad as the basic alternative for Jewish citizens unable to obtain rabbinical approval, while stressing that travel could be expensive and inconvenient and did not provide the acceptance associated with marrying in one's own country.[11]

On November 21, 2006, the Supreme Court decided Ben-Ari and related petitions involving five Israeli same-sex couples who had married in Canada. After registry clerks refused to change their status from single to married, the Court ruled 6–1 that the foreign certificates had to be recorded. The majority explained that the Population Registry records events documented by public certificates and is not the forum for deciding whether Israeli law recognizes a particular substantive form of marriage.[12]

The government subsequently described the registrations as giving the couples civil consequences including National Insurance and tax benefits, while emphasizing that the Court had not created a new same-sex marital status under Israeli law and had left that question to the Knesset.[5] Foreign same-sex marriages are treated in the same manner as foreign heterosexual civil marriages for purposes including taxation, real estate, and financial matters.[13]

A separate 2006 ruling involving a Jewish couple married civilly in Cyprus addressed dissolution rather than registry entry. The Court recognized that the marriage had to be formally dissolved before either spouse could remarry, illustrating that registration, substantive recognition, and divorce jurisdiction are related but distinct legal questions.[3][14]

The 2010 Law on Spousal Agreements for Persons Without a Religion created a narrow domestic civil-union mechanism. It applies to an opposite-sex couple when both partners are Israeli residents aged 18 or older, are registered as belonging to no religion, are not relatives, and are not already registered as married.[3][15]

Partners registered under the law are generally treated as married for purposes of other legislation, with exceptions including immigration law. The measure did not create a general civil-marriage system, alter the jurisdiction of religious courts, or provide an alternative for Jewish couples who cannot or do not wish to marry through the Rabbinate.[3][15]

A contemporary World Jewish Congress report said the law was expected to allow thousands of Israelis without a religious denomination to formalize their relationships domestically. It also reported that the legislation's sponsor hoped to extend the arrangement to all Israelis, but no such general expansion followed.[16]

Utah online marriages became prominent when travel restrictions made overseas ceremonies difficult. In these ceremonies, an officiant acting under Utah law conducted the wedding by video conference while the couple remained in Israel, after which Utah issued a marriage certificate.[17][10]

The Interior Ministry stopped registering the certificates, arguing that ceremonies involving couples physically present in Israel should be governed by Israeli law and that applying foreign-marriage precedents would create civil marriage domestically through an administrative route.[17] In 2022, the Lod District Court and Jerusalem Administrative Affairs Court separately required the Population and Immigration Authority to register such marriages.[17][18]

On March 7, 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the state's appeals and required registry officials to record the Utah-issued certificates.[19] The ruling addressed the registrar's duty, not the creation of an Israeli civil-marriage ceremony. Following the decision, the Population and Immigration Authority registered hundreds of applications previously held under a 2020 Interior Ministry order. The State Department also reported that 150 to 175 Israeli couples were marrying online in Utah each month after the ruling.[2]

The route benefits couples who cannot or do not wish to use Israel's religious institutions, including LGBTQI+ couples, while remaining legally distinct from a general civil-marriage system administered under Israeli law.[2][19]

Entry of a marriage in the Population Registry does not determine how it must be dissolved. Religious courts have exclusive divorce jurisdiction when both spouses are registered with the same recognized religion.[9] For Jewish couples, this can require proceedings in the rabbinical court system even when the marriage was contracted through a civil ceremony abroad.[8]

Commentators in the Jewish Review of Books noted that Jews registered as married can obtain a divorce only through the state rabbinical courts, which may require a halakhic get.[8] Israeli rabbinical authorities have differed over whether a foreign civil marriage requires a get, a precautionary get, or another formal act of dissolution, so registry status and religious-law treatment are not identical.[14]

Property division, support, custody, and related matters may fall within parallel civil and religious jurisdiction, with the first competent court to receive a case generally acquiring jurisdiction.[9] Civil courts may also determine financial consequences of a civil marriage through contract law and good-faith principles without conclusively deciding the spouses' formal marital status.[1] Civil courts handle personal-status cases, including interfaith and same-sex cases, when no religious court has jurisdiction.[9]

Public support for alternatives to the religious marriage system has been substantial. The State Department reported that a 2023 poll of 800 Jewish adults found that 66 percent supported state recognition of choice in marriage, including equal recognition of civil and non-Orthodox religious marriages.[2]

Reform proposals have nevertheless produced only limited changes. In 2007, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann and the Sephardic chief rabbi proposed civil marriage and divorce proceedings in family court where neither partner was considered Jewish under Jewish law. The proposal was not enacted.[6] A 1999 Jerusalem Institute publication identified optional civil marriage and secular personal-status law administered by civil courts as possible reforms, while noting that neither had been adopted.[4]

Participants in a 2016 Jewish Review of Books exchange described alternatives used by secular, gay, and non-Orthodox couples, including contractual arrangements drafted by lawyers, jointly held property, unofficial religious ceremonies, and civil weddings in Cyprus. Netty C. Gross-Horowitz advocated a domestic civil-marriage option alongside religious marriage, presenting it as a reform position rather than existing law.[8]

The central political controversy concerns the Chief Rabbinate's authority over Jewish marriage and the resulting exclusion of people whose Jewish status or proposed marriage is not accepted under Orthodox law. Sources have described the system as particularly affecting immigrants not recognized as Jewish under halakha, Reform and Conservative converts, nonbelievers, and members of unrecognized religious groups.[6][7]

A related legal controversy is the distinction between registry entry and substantive marital validity. Funk-Schlesinger and Ben-Ari required officials to record qualifying foreign documents without treating the registry as a forum for deciding complex status questions.[5][12] The Supreme Court had not, in the account cited by the Jewish Virtual Library, definitively resolved every question concerning the substantive validity of foreign civil marriages involving Jewish Israeli couples, even though civil courts could decide financial consequences.[1]

The Utah cases extended this registration principle to certificates issued after online ceremonies involving couples physically in Israel. The state argued that this would create domestic civil marriage indirectly, while the Supreme Court required registration without establishing a general Israeli civil-marriage system.[17][19]

Divorce remains another point of contention because Jewish couples who used a foreign civil ceremony to avoid the domestic religious marriage system may still come under rabbinical jurisdiction when ending the relationship. Commentators have therefore distinguished the relative accessibility of foreign marriage from the continuing authority of religious courts over dissolution.[8][14]