The Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel approved a precedent-setting decision last week establishing minimum and maximum amounts for the ketubah sum written into Jewish marriage contracts in Israel. Under the decision, approved at the council’s Aug. 16 meeting, the ketubah amount may not be lower than 36,000 shekels or higher than 360,000 shekels.
The decision was based on the work of a rabbinical judges’ committee that included Israel’s chief rabbis, Rabbi David Yosef and Rabbi Kalman Meir Ber, as well as senior rabbinical court judges and members of the Chief Rabbinate Council.
A ketubah is a Jewish religious and legal marriage contract setting out the husband’s obligations toward his wife during the marriage. Traditionally written in Aramaic, it includes a sum the husband undertakes to pay his wife in the event that the marriage ends under circumstances in which she is entitled to collect it. In many divorce cases, particularly those initiated by the woman or concluded by mutual agreement, women waive their right to receive the ketubah payment.
The initiative to set limits was launched by Rabbi David Yosef, president of the Great Rabbinical Court, against the backdrop of longstanding disputes in rabbinical courts over excessively high ketubah amounts. In some cases, grooms have written sums far beyond anything they could realistically pay.
The issue has long raised a halachic question known as gemirut da’at, or genuine intent to undertake an obligation: whether a financial commitment that the signer plainly lacks the ability or intention to fulfill can be considered valid under Jewish law.
Sources involved in the issue said the goal is to ensure that the ketubah sum remains realistic rather than becoming a symbolic display of honor or status. That is why, they said, the decision sets both a maximum and a minimum. The lower threshold reflects the view that the ketubah must still provide a meaningful basic financial commitment to the wife.
Israel’s chief rabbis, Rabbi David Yosef and Rabbi Kalman Meir Ber
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, Meni Tuito)
Rabbi Kalman Meir Ber, president of the Chief Rabbinate Council, told ynet that the current situation had undermined the document’s purpose. “A situation developed in which grooms commit in the ketubah to imaginary sums that it is clear from the outset they have neither the intention nor the ability to pay, thereby undermining the very halachic meaning of the document,” he said.
“At the same time, the matter cannot be left completely open without any defined minimum, because the ketubah is intended to provide the woman with real financial security.”
He said setting a lower and upper limit is intended to restore the ketubah “to its proper place, as a halachically meaningful document and not an empty declaration of intent.”
Guy Raveh, chairman of the nonprofit Shared Parenting = The Child’s Best Interest, welcomed the move. “We hope this positive directive will reduce disputes between parents, and we are looking forward to the recommendations of the committee appointed by Rabbi David Yosef to examine child support payments and adapt them to present-day realities,” he said.