c. 2004 Religion News Service

KFAR SABA, Israel _ The Three Weeks, the period prior to Tisha B’Av when Jews mourn the destruction of the biblical temples, is traditionally a time of quiet reflection. Due to this period’s prohibition against getting married, most wedding musicians and photographers go on vacation.

Yet this ban did not stop Shanee and Moshe Sheleg, secular Jews, from recently exchanging their vows in the lush, poolside garden of Nir Eliahu, a community northeast of Tel Aviv.

Once a taboo, non-Orthodox and secular marriages are a small but growing phenomenon in Israel, to the chagrin of the country’s Orthodox rabbinate, the nation’s sole legal authority performing weddings. While some couples yearn for the flexibility and creativity an alternative wedding can bring, the Orthodox argue that such weddings lead to religious intermarriage, assimilation and ultimately threaten the Jewish people.

In mid-July, such concern did not stop the Shelegs on their big day. The handsome thirty-something couple stood under a huppa, or Jewish wedding canopy, as their friends and family members looked on. The wedding, an eclectic mix of Jewish traditions and modern Israeli and secular culture, was not officiated by a rabbi.

Other deviations at this wedding included a double-ring ceremony and a personalized ketuba, or marriage contract, that stressed the couple’s commitment to humanistic values. Rather than ask religious men to recite the prescribed seven blessings, one of the bride’s girlfriends related a story and her uncle recited a touching, sometimes humorous poem he had written. The bride’s arms were bare, as was the groom’s head. There wasn’t a kippah (skullcap) to be seen.

Still, at the ceremony’s close the groom smashed a glass with his foot, as Jewish grooms have done for centuries to recall the destruction of the temples.

No one knows exactly how many alternative marriages are performed in Israel each year because only those performed by the rabbinate are considered Jewish and legally kosher. Estimates place the number at about 1,000, compared to the 32,000 marriages performed each year by approved rabbis.

Since the state does not recognize these alternative marriages, and there is as yet no civil marriage in Israel, couples like the Shelegs must undergo a civil marriage abroad in order to be registered as a married couple by the Interior Ministry.

Each year more than 5,000 Israeli couples, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have civil weddings overseas, mostly in nearby Cyprus. Though many couples are happy with rabbinate weddings, others say that the authority is too bureaucratic and religiously conservative. All brides, including secular ones, are required to take classes related to “family purity.”

Orthodox Jews abstain from sexual relations two weeks of every month _ and are asked not to schedule their weddings during their menstrual cycles for fear of ritual contamination on their wedding night. Even the most religious couples must bring witnesesses and documents attesting that they are single and Jewish.

Because the rabbinate marries only Jews, and hundreds of thousands of immigrants have Jewish roots but no official religion (making it equally impossible for them to marry in a church or mosque), these citizens cannot marry legally in Israel.

To solve this problem, some parliamentarians have been trying to pass a civil-marriage bill that would enable these citizens to wed each other. Due to pressure from religious legislators, the law would not apply to full-fledged Jews.

Orthodox Jews insist that for the Jewish people to survive, traditional Judaism must prevail.

“We see until this day that marriages performed by other means, without kiddushin _ santification _ are flawed and lead to intermarriage and assimilation,” said a spokesman for Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.

While alternative weddings are understandably attractive to couples the rabbinate refuses to marry, they are growing in popularity even in some Jewish circles.

“We could have had a rabbinate wedding, but we’re glad we didn’t,” said Inbal Cohen, 27, who opted for an alternative wedding. “Our wedding was very personal, very intimate and family-oriented. It was beautiful.”

Yiftach Shlomy, the director of the Institute of Jewish Secular Rites and the person who conducted the Shelegs’ marriage, said his organization provides the flexibility some couples seek.

The organization also assists Jews who, for a variety of reasons, cannot be married by an Orthodox rabbi.

“We have gay and lesbian couples. We marry divorcees who wish to marry `kohens,’ ” said Shlomy, referring to the forbidden union between a divorced woman and a member of the priestly class. “We marry `mamzerim,’ “the offspring of a married woman who has a child by a man she is not married to.”

The institute is particularly popular among immigrants who are not considered Jewish under Jewish law.

“We’ll work with anyone who feels a major connection to Judaism but who is not considered Jewish by the rabbinate,” said Shlomy. “For example, someone with a Jewish father. We must change the definition of who is Jewish. That is our mission.”

In contrast, the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel, which between them conduct several hundred weddings each year, refuse to perform marriages between Jews and non-Jews, unless the non-Jews have been converted to Judaism by rabbinic courts.

“Couples choose us over the rabbinate because our ceremonies are more in sync with their non-Orthodox lifestyle,” said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Because the vast majority of the couples married by his movement cohabitate prior to marrying, Kariv said, Reform weddings have disposed of the `yichud’ room, where Orthodox couples break their wedding-day fast and sometimes consummate their marriage.

“My husband doesn’t believe in religion,”said Shanee Sheleg, who opted for a relatively nontraditional wedding. “We wanted the wedding to be who we are, not something foreign.”

At the same time, Sheleg added, “we didn’t want it to be too strange, for our guests. It was a balancing act.”

MO/JL END