Because of the children. You are so self-rightously secular that you think only of yourself. Yes, divorce is not the problem - but what if the child of a illegitimate marriage (acc. to Jewish law) wants to marry religiously her/himself? So, this is the group that your proposal discriminates against. And of course "the daughter of a Hassidic leader can marry a secular man"! If she only wants, she will find a rabbi to marry them.

In today's paper there was an article about a 14 year old and her 16 year old husband that got a divorce even though they were not married by a Rabbi. If all it takes to be married here is to follow the Jewish law of saying one line in front of 2 witness, then we can have the civil marriages and seculars can marry without the Rabbi. We just need to fix the process on how they get registered.

Could it be that YNet has an agenda to push? Could it, could it could it???

You have plenty of legal freedom to do that. Don't create fake marriages just so you can imitate a legitimate institution when you don't even care what marriage is about.

Israel is a Jewish state. If a Jew wants to marry a non-Jew, it can be done but not in Israel as it should be. Why lower the bar? We all make mistakes. I've sure made my share of mistakes. Only this writer wants to codify bad behavior into law. Isn't it better to try to preserve our people, what is left of us? In the U.S., intermarriage and assimilation is astronomic! What American Jewish family has not been decimated by this scourge? Why bring this to Israel? We can do better than this.

Believe it or not there are people committed to Israel, even though they not Jewish. Those people should have option to get married. In the end marriage is a civil contract. always was...Adding religious connotation is strictly personal. Bigotry is scary, so wise man from other side of the ocean and their imaginary issues, that have nothing to do with real life whatsover!

There we go Mr Philosopher, who are you to judge other people life and choices? You surely think you morally better that anybody else, and even have guts to give fake intellectually vague opinions. Well then, bring on your marriage certificate, it surely gives perfect ingredients for true happiness.

A childless widow would not be allowed to marry her brother-in-law under rabbanut rules. She is certainly not required to do so.

Israel CANNOT tell non-Jews that they are welcome to come to Israel (so long as one grandparent maybe Jewish) but then deny that same person the right to marry. This is an absurdity. Of course, it would have been best to never let in the non-Jews but now that you did, your obligation to provide them with a way to marry is 100% necessary. Also, if any secular jew would want a civil marriage the indication to you is that the couple was not allowed to marry under jewish law. Instead of lying to the rabbinate they simply get a civil marriage. Then, years down the road, when your religious son wants to marry someone, you do not have to extensively research that person's background. If the parents had a civil marriage the relationship is probably forbidden under Jewish law and that person isnt right for your son. As a religious Jew I want the seculars and non-jews (1) to be happy and (2) to be identifiably removed from the religious population.

civil marriage outside Israel is accepted! But your non Jewish spouse has no legal status whatsoever. In other words a life of total misery , with false hopes that things will improve, but they give you a phoney reason that your non Jewish spouse is not accepted in Israel. and you are left with nothing!!

".... Why should a small minority impose their rituals on the vast majority of the population...?." First of all YNET KNOWS froms polls it published itself that the vast majority is traditional, not secular. Secondly polls showed that over 80% of the Jewish population still prefered the Traditional orthodox marriage. That been set clear, I do go for civil marriage for a variety of reasons. One is that the few hundred thousands of non jews from former Soviet Union need a marriage institution to suit their non Jewish status. Secondly a large segment of the population does not care or even know that an aguna that has relationships with another man is commiting adultery, and G-d forbid, if she has offspring then they are mamzerim. A civil marriage will never produce neither agunot nor mamzerim., because it was never a marriage in the first place. Far from being the ideal solution. A jew who wants to marry a goy will do so whether there is marriage or not. Cyprus or not, they sign some contract in any event. Sure the jewish character of the Jewish state will be affected, and sure will loose Jews to goyim, but if they are ready to marry a non Jew, how Jewish are they ? I prefer civil marriage with no Halachic connotations than reform or conservative ones that do end up being binding (in most cases) halachicaly. We might end up having two Jewish people, and that's inevitable. For how long can we call pork eating or desecrators of Shabbat "Jews": legitimate Jews?

Jews are not Catholics. If a Catholic remarries after a divorce, there is nt stigma attached to their children. Their parents can't take communion but they can participate in church ceremonies like every other member. Not so for Jews. To be a mamzer is a fate worse than death. The person is forever stigmatized and unable to marry in the community. However, if two non-Jewish Israeli citizens want to marry here in a civil ceremony, I see no reason to object. Before the aliyah from the former USSR, we hardly had cemetaries to bury non-Jews and now we have many secular cemetaries. We should have civil marriage when both partners aren't Jewish and don't belong to another religion.

Most Israelis, even if they are secular, do want Orthodox ceremonies for the important milestones of their life. I agree with the talkbacker who wrote that it is important for us to stick to true Jewish tradition and not become like the Galut where the Jews are dying off, marrying non-Jews and assimilating away from the Jewish People.

But DACON, with civil marriage, we could finally tie the knot. just think about our marriage! it would feature such heartwarming scenes as you sitting by the fire and studying the Torah while I lovingly work in the kitchen fixing pork dumplings. all this would be possible with civil marriage.

Let's get rid of discriminatory laws that serve mainly one sector of the population. Let's allow people to have free choice. We didn't come back to our homeland in order to be told how to marry (or, for that matter, to be forced to financially support huge special interest groups who are exempt from everyone else's responsibilities and think they have greater authority over our heritage - but that's a different story). The point of Israel as a Jewish state is to provide freedom to Jews who have been persecuted for millenia. We already have a vast majority Jewish population, and with the taboos among the Arab community it remains that a young Jew's marriage choices are overwhelmingly - if not exclusively - other Jews. Thus, civil marriage would create no demographic threat. All it would do would be to allow Israelis - including many secular Jews who do not connect with the ceremonies of the Rabbinate - to choose how they want to get married, either in a religious ceremony or a civil ceremony. Our Jewish, democratic state should allow Jews and goyim the freedom to choose how and with whom they will experience the major milestones in their lives.

Are Israelis willing to accept that their children of a civil marriage are not recognized as being Jewish, because by halacha many will not be Jewish. It is problematic that the state of Israel wants to involve itself in a religious issue but at the same time demands that their recognition of an individual as Jewish be respected by religious people who follow Halacha.

I think that you are wrong . If the mother is Jewish , so are the children

I am a deist, and my partner is a Catholic, and i ve never felt that our spirtual views affected our relationship. I would like to add that marriage itself is unnessacary. Looking at civiled societies in the west, many couples enjoying perfect relationships without marriage. The bottom line is that all religious rituals are bulls**t. Hope one day we can live in a religion-free world and be able to love each other.

It will facilitate mixed marriages , who will have first half Jews , then quarter , at the end , not Jewish at all . I know very seculars who got married by a rabbi , a nice ceremony , without any religious signification for them , but can have great influence on their children if not done . That was also one of the reasons for me , a secular as most of you know , to get married by a True Orthodox Rabbi , even that in Europe a civil marriage exists [ i had to got married at the town hall first ]

Living in Israel? This does not make you a Jew, since many people who live there are muslims, christians, and other small minorities. So please tell me what makes you a Jew?

Why not have pagan rites in the Temple when it is rebuilt, I ask you? Not. Shabbath Shalom.

Israeli public cannot be forced to the mercy of orthodox rabbis. This exclusive behavior not only discriminates against Russian immigrants but also reform and conservative Jews. Israel needs to become a normal country like any other. Yes a Jewish state but not a Jewish discriminatory state.

The religious have only themselves to blame for the move to civil marriages. The religious marriage bureaucracy is there to serve itself, not the people and certainly nor Judaism. It is full of self-serving sinat himam (hatred) and is designed to insult any Jew who is not orthodox. In fact, it insults many national religious Jews as well. If a secular combat veteran goes to get married, he pays hundreds of shekels to open a file at the marriage bureau. If a yeshiva student who shirked his national duty and gets taxpayer's money for learning in a yeshiva shows up, he gets a fat discount. The secular guy, out working to pay taxes and keep the economy and country going ends up having to take time off work for "family purity" classes that the bureaucracy forces him to go to in order to allow him to get married. The yeshiva guy learned about it in yeshiva, so he gets a free pass. Does the bureaucracy hold evening or friday classes for the secular guys? Of course not. No wonder the secular hate the system - it stinks. Will the threat of impending civil marriages wake up the religious bureaucracy to actually serve the people and stop their hate-filled lust for power? Of course not. They'll just whine and shout and spew more hatred of the seculars, instead of figuring out how to make a religious marriage a desired quantity.

"m", if you think that being a Jew means swimming with one group that claims it holds the keys to heaven, you are mistaken. If all Israeli Jews were Haredim, our state would not be able to function. Israel is the homeland of all the Jewish people, not only the religious (whether Haredi, Orthodox, or anything else) Jewish people. What makes me a Jew is my ethnic and cultural identity, my people's history, and my recognition of my heritage as having its home in the land of Israel. Speaking Hebrew, living in Israel, and internalizing the collective history of the Jewish people as my history. A Frenchman feels French, a Spaniard feels Spanish, and as a Jew - especially an Israeli Jew - I feel Jewish (though some may argue that the "New Jew" may be emerging as plainly the Israeli). However, this does not mean that I must allow self-righteous groups - which do not even perform some of the basic obligations that the state sets for most Jews - to dictate the way other Israeli Jews (and non-Jews) live their lives. Once again, the Jews came out of exile to live in freedom - not to be inundated with more religious coercion.

a widow may marry a cohen

Intermarriage is what will save the human race... not cool Steve... not Steve

Everyone can have a marriage in his own religion , Jewish , Christian , Muslim all of them . The problem is with people who don't want , or can't have a religious wedding . I , as a secular , don't like mixed marriages . One reason , first half , then quarter and so on . A second reason is the children , for some people they will be Jews , for others Goyim . They will face problems later when they want to get married themselve . Your last sentence : removed from the religious population . In ghettos ?

Gabriella and Besalel , both religious , are in favor of civil marriage . I , a known secular , am against . We all three have serious arguments in favor of what we think , so it's as i wrote in my first TB : a difficult problem to resolve .

If the woman has been married before then there are potential problems. Still the main point should be that the first mix of religion and state that has to be removed is the one of the state keeping track of who is Jewish. That strictly speaking not the State's business in the first place and secondly becomes misleading when civil marriage becomes common place.