Man and woman, but still abomination
The true story of a war widow, her dead husband’s brother, and the country that agreed to pay for their 'secret wedding' abroad
Jewish law frowns not only on same-sex marriages, but on some other types as well. This is the story of a couple whose marriage was considered an “abomination,” a true story that the religious establishment prefers to keep mum about.
But as fate would have it, the woman was pregnant when her husband died, and in such cases she may not marry her brother-in-law. This is the most stringent of prohibitions, on the level of incest. Even Rabbi Shlomo Goren, famous for being innovative and flexible about Judaism, was unable to help this couple. He recommended that they get married abroad and keep the whole thing absolutely quiet.
A war widow wanted to marry her dead husband’s brother. It’s a sad story which ended with consolation. Judaism even loves such couples. In fact, a widow is commanded to marry her dead husband’s brother, and if the two do not wish to marry, they must conduct a special ceremony called halitzah.
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But the couple did not give up. They approached the Defense Ministry, which sent a very senior representative with a proposal to pay for a wedding anywhere in the world, even the North Pole or Tierra del Fuego, so long as they didn’t talk too much about it.
He died in the battle for Jerusalem
But such deviousness did not suit two native-born Israelis living in their land. In Spain there were crypto-Jews who hid their faith, but not in the country that has one of the world’s strongest armies.
The husband was killed in the battle for Jerusalem, not far from the Western Wall. Or put differently, the husband was killed for the sanctification of God’s name. What does that mean? He sacrificed himself for the unification of Jerusalem, which is surrounded by mountains. He bequeathed us Judaism when he died. Yet his widow and brother became Jews persecuted in their own homeland.
They got married at their own expense in a foreign country, and informed the Interior Ministry. Initially the ministry was happy to register their marriage, but the couple was not willing to keep quiet. They told the official who they were and what the story was. That’s a problem, said the official, and the case was transferred to a higher level, where a religious official proposed that the case be dealt with quietly, as if the couple had not given an explanation of the circumstances.
What would have happened had they agreed? Their children would have been considered mamzerim. Even the high-ranking official told them that he could not accept this. This couple’s marriage was an abomination. And they are not homosexuals or lesbians.
Taste of fear
The widow and the brother considered turning to the High Court of Justice, but decided against it. The dead husband’s mother was rather weak.
She, who’d sent her son to die in battle on the altar of the Torah, was frightened she might hear those who send their sons to die for the Torah claim in the newspapers that her living son and her widowed daughter-in-law were a disgrace to the Jewish people, to the Torah, and to Jewishness. And that her grandchildren were liable to be mamzerim.
Like every good story, this story had many absurdities. But let us make do with a question: What is a Jewish democratic state? A state based on Torah, or a state of Jews? Let’s discuss this without reference to Israeli Arabs.
A state ruled by Torah law is a state whose Judaism is determined by the concepts of Jewish law, and a state of Jews is a state whose Judaism is determined by its Jewish residents, religious and secular. The laws of a state ruled by Torah law are limited by Jewish law, while the laws of a state of Jews are based on the desire of the majority of the Jews in the country. The Torah restricts the authority of the Knesset, and the Jews expand it.
A state ruled by Torah law is capable of persecuting Jews because of their Jewishness, as in the story of the widow and her dead husband’s brother, while a state of the Jews does not abandon wounded Jews.
As a Jewish democratic state, a state based on Torah is a criminal state. It keeps two sets of books, one open, saying that “we’re all Jews,” and the other with lists of Jews who’ve been silenced. On the one hand are pleasant words in the spirit of democracy, and on the other, people forbidden to marry, mamzerim, children whose father’s identity is unknown, converts, Sephardim, and even ultra-Orthodox Jews who are considered suspect in some way.
A state that turns some of us into Marranos, living life like other people, but not speaking too much.
Avinoam Ben Zeev is a philosopher and writer, an expert in dilemmas, feelings, and prejudice
Illustration
Photo: Visual/Photos
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