Most Israelis support same-sex couples
Ynet, Smith Institute poll shows 58 percent of Israelis support same-sex couples, including their right to raise children, while 19 percent say they would want to revoke right of same-sex couples to raise children, but add that these couples should ‘lived as they see fit’; 50 percent of traditional Israelis, 16 percent of religious Israelis open to idea of same-sex couples that are able to raise their children, survey says
Is there G-d under the chuppah? The poll "Does G-d Exist?" jointly carried out by Ynet and the Smith Institute examined a number of questions testing the level of religiosity and closeness to Judaism within Israeli society. The poll was performed on a representative sample of 500 respondents as well as an internet survey of more than 40,000 Ynet readers. The results present a new model of secular Israeliness, which is very different than the existing Western model.
Some of the questions dealt with personal and family life. It turns out that despite what seems like a growing interest in alternative or civil marriage, a large majority of Israelis prefer the Orthodox option. To the answer "How did you, or do you plan on, getting married?" a large majority of 84 percent answered "according to religious law."
Only 13 percent responded that would do a civil marriage, and only a few answered that they would get married "without a rabbi, but with traditional elements" or would live with a partner without marrying. Out of only the secular respondents, 13 percent said they prefer weddings according to religious law, and only 21 percent preferred civil marriage.
How do these numbers measure up to the fact that if you do a simple search for "civil marriage" on the Web, dozens of travel agency sites pop up offering a range of travel packages for those getting married? Travel agencies with which Ynet spoke mentioned that this is "a very profitable market that is always accelerating." How does this jive with the findings that most Israelis want a wedding with a rabbi?
Dr. Asher Cohen, from the Humanities Department at Bar-Ilan University, believes that the traditional option got a high rating mainly because "in the legal situation today, there isn't an option to get married not according to religious law." He estimates that "if the two alternatives were offered equally like in a situation where there are two offices next to your house – one of the rabbinate and one of the Interior Ministry – this question would be more significant. Because this is not the situation, such a religious answer was received."
In his opinion, the answer received "tends toward the reality impose on Israelis. People say to themselves: There is the rabbinate here. Why would I go get mixed up in Cyprus?"
Minister MK Yitzhak Cohen (Shas), responsible for the Religious Services Authority in the Prime Minister's Office, expressed his satisfaction with the survey findings: "These findings present a very clear fact – that the Israeli nation is very strongly connected to its roots. So there are those who keep more mitzvoth and those who keep less, but the backbone is very connected to the roots."
According to sociologist Dr. Nissim Leon of Bar-Ilan University, if there is one statistic that represents Israeli society's relationship with religion, it is the way in which Israelis chose to get married. He evaluates, "The issue of marriage will be one of the signs of either the weakness or the strength of Orthodoxy in coming years. Through this question we will be able to know how strong the Orthodox mold is.
Dr. Leon estimates that if the poll had asked about stances toward the religious establishment, "We would have seen the rabbinate ranked at the bottom of the ladder. In opinion polls, this institution is in a very problematic position." According to him, the "religious responses" received by poll respondents are testimony that "most people separate between the religious establishment and religious tradition."
On the contrary, Minister Cohen claims that the alienation from the rabbinate stems from the fact that "in recent years the rabbinical establishment has suffered from regime alienation. But the same people who suffered true persecution in the previous government have continued despite this to work diligently and loyally even though they weren't paid salaries for long periods and they didn't strike for even one day.
"This alone," says Cohen, "shows that these people are very unique. They continued working and sanctifying Heaven." According to him, the way to improve the average Israeli's relations with the rabbinical establishment is to increase public relations campaigns and awareness, but "of course in a way that sticks to the Torah and not through reforms that bring in foreign elements, and according to our holy Torah."
'We decided to treat this painful abscess'
Tzohar, an organization seeking unity between religious and secular in Israel, was established in 1996 after Rabin's murder "because we decided to give our part, as Orthodox rabbis, to the consolidation of Israeli society. The first effort we developed was marrying secular couples voluntarily," explained the organization's chairman, Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein.
"This is one of the painful meeting points between the religious establishment, the law, and the secular person. It hurts twice over because of the coercive element and because of the manner in which these weddings are done," he said. Rabbi Feuerstein gave examples: "A wedding with a rabbi whom the couple doesn't know prior to getting married, a lack of emotional connection between the couple and the rabbi because of cultural differences. So, we decided we would treat this painful abscess."
Today, Tzohar rabbis perform about 2,500 weddings a year, representing about 20 percent of the secular couples in Israel. The organization does not advertise its services and its activities are spread by word of mouth. Feuerstein says that he is interested in presenting the religious version of the ceremony – Orthodox in a softened, less threatening version – and that his ultimate goal is "to make the religious marriage ceremony the center of the evening, even for an ultra-secular couple… we need the interest of the secular public to be to preserve a few Jewish symbols and to give a Jewish character to the country."
Rabbi Feuerstein bases his stance on conversations with couples he has married, which he has done for close to 20 years. "People are thirsty for some kind of rootedness and a certain moral standard. There is no couple that comes to me without me asking them: Tell me, why are you coming to me and not to a Reform rabbi to design your wedding however you want? The most common answer that I receive is, 'Because we want to get married the same way my grandmother did.' For many secular people, there is some kind of desire for continuity and more loaded symbolism and not just innovation. We have enough innovation in millions of areas of life."
For couples who aren't interested in walking the halls of the rabbinate to register for marriage, or, at the other end of the process, for divorce, there is the Reform and Conservative option. It is important to note that Reform and Conservative marriages are not recognized by Israeli law. The Interior Ministry and other government offices don't grant benefits or rights to couples who chose to marry this way. The only marriages registered in Israel are Orthodox marriages or those performed abroad.
Despite the fact that these marriages are not recognized, the number of couples choosing to be married by a Reform rabbi has risen 20 percent since last year. Last year, rabbis of the Reform Movement performed close to 1,000 weddings. Rabbis in the Conservative Movement perform between 150 and 200 wedding ceremonies every year.
Ramat Aviv's Conservative rabbi, Rabbi David Lazar strongly disagrees with the term "to marry" or "to marry off." He thinks that these are not the proper verbs to use when talking about marriage because, explains Lazar, they don't "describe a wedding, but a marriage ceremony. Once, the meaning of marrying a woman was that a man bought a wife. Today, all the couples who come to me don't mean marriage in this sense." He asserts that today's wedding ceremonies are not related to property exchange "but to sanctity, a situation in which two people come together to raise themselves to a new level of life through correcting the world."
'There is room for tolerance'
Rabbi Lazar claims that the most outrageous element of the Orthodox ceremony, apart from the fact that the blessing only refers to the male side, is the irrelevant meaning of the words for most secular couples. "I have performed close to 200 ceremonies and I remember only one instance of a couple that didn't live together before coming to me. I don't think that the couples who come to me are living in sin. They don't think they are living in sin, but religious law says that it is forbidden for a couple to have sexual relations until the very moment after the chuppah. What the rabbi is essentially saying under the chuppah in the presence of 200 to 300 people is that we are going to make you permissible so that tonight the man will have intercourse with you will do so with permission, and not with prohibition."
According to the Ynet and Smith Institute poll, 23 percent of Israelis are in favor of forbidding same-sex couples by law; a majority of 58 percent support same-sex couples, including their right to raise children, and 19 percent said they would want to revoke the right of same-sex couples to raise children, but added that these couple should ‘live as they see fit.’
According to the poll, 78 percent of secular Israelis support same-sex couples, including their right to raise children, as opposed to 10 percent of seculars who oppose these couples and 12 percent who support same-sex couples but believe they should not be permitted to raise children. The poll showed that 50 percent of traditional Israelis and 16 percent of religious Israelis are open to the idea of same-sex couples that are able to raise their children.
Itai Pinkas, a Tel Aviv Municipal Council member and a gay community leader says he is encouraged by the poll’s results.
“The figures prove that Israeli society is progressing and is far more open to the gay family than the Book of Laws and the establishment,” he says. “It seems that most citizens are in favor of equality.”
Attorney Irit Rosenblum, chairman of the New Family organization, says the survey is indicative of a process Israeli society in general and the gay community in particular is going through.
“The Jewish and Middle-Eastern cultures are cultures of fertility. One of the accusations against the gay community is that it is not fertile,” she says, “but once the opportunity is given - and modern technology provides an almost unlimited number of ways to bring children into the world – this creates a 180 degree turnaround in how the community is looked upon.”
“It seems as though there is room for tolerance, even in a traditional society,” Rosenblum says.
