before the wedding itself, help the couple solve their actual problems through the standard conversion process, and stop acting like it's all so unimportant. You're just making it look like an utter joke, pushing the issues under the rug and then springing them right before the wedding. Rabbi Hadana, in this case, acts as the only official Beta Israel Rabbi who can decide if the community members to be married are Jewish or not - as a rule, the general Rabbinate asks that they, at the very least, undergo the ceremonial aspects of the conversion process - dip in the mikve, and so on. Most Ethiopian Jews prefer to "avoid the humiliation" as they put it, of having their Jewishness tested, and ask for an alternative - and this is where Rabbi Hadana steps in. Unfortunately, I'm no longer sure he deserves the title of Rabbi. All this foolishness... for what, to save face? To keep the trouble away until the actual wedding day, and then what?

Truly disgusting!!

Corruption....no less than what goes on with cemetary plots. When will Israelis stop catering to these mafias and demand an end to this type of fraud? When will the "religious" get real jobs and stop cashing in on G-d?

Is if there is really a problem with the Jewishness of the couple. Obviously they are fully convinced they have been officially converted and everything is fine else they would not begin the wedding process and would go instead to Cyprus or elsewhere to marry. Odd that the problem is discovered just in time to rip them off to the tune of thousands of shekels for a fake wedding and thousands more to "fix" whatever was "wrong" with their original conversion. After all, these people are required to undergo rigourous conversion when they arrive in this country...

seek these "rabbis" to marry me. A million shames upon you.

Why is anyone surprised? This should not come as a shock to anyone. If they are not conning innocent vulnerable people, they are conning the government with fictitious numbers of yeshiva students. These disgusting people that claim to be holy, constantly sore to new heights of failure in their moral conduct. They make a daily mockery of Judaism all because of their insatiable GREED for money. They are simply grotesque.

I is an insult to a proud segment of our Jewish nation.

How refreshing it is to find out - once again, and after all the various wrongdoing implicating this or that rabbi- that" religious people" can be easily corrupted........and setting up all the details of their own sin ! AND WE WANT TO GIVE LESSONS TO THE WORLD ? Who the hell are we ? SECULARIZE NOW

Ethiopian Jews harmed by these "Rabbis" should sue not only the Rabbi but the Rabbanute as well for damages including costs of the wedding and emotional distress. There is no way the Rabbanute didn't know what was going on, and sadly these are not the only people experiencing difficulties due to corruption. It's a sad day in Israel when the the people trusted to guide us cheat, lie and steal from us.

About time people had a choice, there should be a recognised civil ceremony . These corrupt mullahs who put on a black kippah and grow a beard and start preaching i am hollier than thou are only intested in making money off other pepoles suffering. its time to take the wind out of their sails.

I quote "According to the Halacha, one of the problems lies in the blessings recited by the rabbi during the ceremony. The Rabbi makes sure not to read them in full so as not to bless in vain. ". So as not to bless in vain!!! He is so worried about that, but the whole story is a complete and utter desecration of G-d's name. They should be sacked now, and immediately, have title of Rabbi removed from them. i imagine the Supreme Beit Din of the Rabbinate won't do that however. That is reserved for Harav Druckman. Chillul Hashem!!!!

nor is this fault of the 3 rabbis mentioned. This all boils down to the problem of who is jewish and who is not. There are some elements in the official rabbinate that do not want some groups to be called jewish even if they are and will put up as many roadblocks as they can in their little game called "who's a jew". It's all politics.

no one benefits from either

by definition, a religious is someone is a Jew who keeps the mitzvot. if a man with black and white clothes that seculars Jews call "religious" is rushing aftter money... its not more on the religious side, its more on the non-religious side... remember... a lot of black hats in this country are just seculars !!!

on the same level, spiritual or otherwise with others. What a disgrace.

Have a ceremony with your own Ethiopean Kessim (sp?) and then marry in Cyprus in order to register at the population and census office of the Ministry of the Interior so you can be spouses in your identity card. No need to give into the coersion of the taliban.

it seems the more religious one is, the more charges incur. sad.

Not these Rabbis but others saying I was a reformed Jew or not even Jewish. had to get letters from rabbis in the states and then had to fight it out, money was brought up but I was a Hyal Boded and they cut me some slack. but even so this practice has to end. and the rabbis involved should do time in prison.

Why is that Israel is the only place in the world where what's important is the Kashrut of the Rabbi? Everywhere else in the world where Jews marry what is important is the Kashrut of the two witnesses who sign the Ketubah? what is it that I am missing? Is it really all about money?

It was Ethiopian Rabbis who are responsible.

25 years ago, when I was about to get married, my fiancee and I had a different problem... She wanted a particular catering outfit to "do" the reception, so we found a hall that had no "dedicated" caterer, and ordered the one we wanted. The Rabbinate pressured us to have the hall management (WIZO Ramat Gan) sign a contract with an "approved" caterer (a relative of one of the rabbis), withholding their approval of the marriage file, in spite of the fact that the caterer we chose had a Rabbinical Kashrut certificate. This kind of blackmail is not unique and has been going on for years. If anybody;s interested, I did NOT cave in to their demands, but recorded a conversation at the Rabbinate and explained gently that I would send it to Mevaker Hamedina if they didn't stop playing games. We were married on time (and the rabbi they sent stuffed his face at the reception-- even though we had our own rabbi to perform the ceremony).

MIchael ....ata tzeddek ! I differentiate " observant " from "religious ( and I put "religious" in bracket ) . I deeply respect observants, I deeply despise all of those who use religion - like many ravs do - to achieve their own personal goals who have nothing to do with sanctity or mitsvoth....although I am certainly not observant , I find it not acceptable that such people do manipulate others in the name of God and to achieve personal gain. In the same fashion I maintain that " religion" is many times a business in Israel, would it be only when talking about price difference between Kosher and non-Kosher food....Indeed , religion brings in money......and this is in full contradiction with the basis of Judaism if I correctly recall all of the teachings that my grand father Mozes Israel ( a Hazan ) passed on to my father and my father passed on to me !

I had a very similar problem but was lucky enough to have the head Rabbi of Ariel helping me. It took 3 months to clear up the "problem," however we followed the guidance of the Rabbi helping us and stood our ground, there was NO WAY that we were going to pay them off.

Israel time to clean house. Between the socialist and the rabied Rabbis, your house is filthy.

Hadana ( I have not called him Rav for over a decade) was demanding that the Ethiopian Jews pay him money to be declared Jewish so they could go to Israel. I heard about this from NACOEJ over ten years ago. He told the people that to go to Israel they first had to pay for their sins and the way they were to pay was to pay him cash. The Jews had no money, some of the poorest people in one of the poorest countries in the world, and when they protested that they had no money Hadana told them that it was OK for NACOEJ to pay for their sins by giving him money.

If conservative Judasim could just get over their love affair with gays and their own meshuguna theological students who support it, maybe they would have a chance competing. I guess I'm lucky I was born Jewish so I didn't have to put up with any of this nonsense.

I recently got married, and without ever needed to set one foot in the Rabbanut I trusted my friends' horror stories and bought a ticket to Cyprus where we were treated with respect and greeted warmly by everyone in the town hall. After a long weekend with my new husband we returned to have a Reform ceremony with a Chuppah in front of our friends and family - definitely the way to go. I recommend it to everyone