When Michelle Rojas-Tal, an immigrant from New York, got engaged to Oran Tal, a Sabra, the couple began exploring their options for a wedding ceremony that best suited their religious and spiritual needs.The couple, both Jerusalemites and passionate Zionists, opened a file with their local rabbinate but weren’t satisfied when they found out that their assigned rabbi was not a Zionist.That’s when the couple approached Tzohar, a Lod-based organization founded in 1996, whose flagship “Marriage Project” allows couples from all religious backgrounds to complete their entire marriage process in a legal and halachic manner while taking their specific needs into consideration.According to Nachman Rosenberg the organization’s executive vice president, Tzohar’s mission is to “preserve the Jewish character of the State of Israel by uniting religious and secular societies, enrich Israeli culture with Jewish values, and advocate for a more inclusive and efficient Chief Rabbinate, which accepts the authority of rabbis from religious Zionist backgrounds.”Rosenberg says that thanks to his organization’s 1,000 volunteer rabbis, more than 3,000 couples a year, most of whom define themselves as “secular,” opt to complete their marriage process in a Jewish ceremony in Israel via Tzohar, instead of flying abroad for a civil ceremony to avoid the bureaucracy or stringencies of the Rabbinate.While that phenomenon still exists – according to Rosenberg more than 5,000 Israelis a year opt to get married in civil ceremonies in Cyprus or Prague – more and more couples are turning to Tzohar for a traditional Jewish wedding experience.According to Rabbi David Stav, Tzohar’s chairman and co-founder, the biggest problem with civil marriages abroad is that “while Israel recognizes these marriages for legal purposes, the state doesn’t in terms of Halacha. Therefore,” Stav says, “in 20 years, when the couple’s children want to get married, they will not be recognized by Israel as Jews because of the fact that their parents don’t have a ketuba. In other words, Israel is losing more and more Jews to assimilation right under its nose.” While he doesn’t have an exact figure, Stav says that the number of children who will have problems getting married down the road “is of astronomical proportions.”Rosenberg says that in addition to the bureaucracy, the problem with the rabbinate that causes couples to elect to travel abroad for civil ceremonies, is that “the Chief Rabbinate over the past 20 years has been taken over by certain segments of the population that are non-Zionistic and don’t have an inclusive approach to Halacha.” He adds that “While Tzohar respects haredi society, the Chief Rabbinate was founded to be a bridge; not an extreme branch implementing its beliefs on an entire society, the majority of whom are not religious. That’s a big problem in a place like Israel where religion and state are not separate.”Stav says, “We take a different approach than the rabbinate. We don’t see the people who come into our doors as subjects entering a government office, but as customers.It is our job to convince them and to tempt them to remain connected with their Jewish heritage. That is our goal for every man and woman that comes into our office.”In response to the activities of Tzohar, specifically their wedding program, Avi Blumenthal, the spokesman for Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, says that most of what Tzohar does “is with good intentions and their work should be blessed.” However, he adds that “sometimes the problem isn’t intention but the methodology.”Blumenthal also says that if Tzohar is given free rein outside the rabbinate, it could open up a can of worms. “The issue,” he explains, “is that if Tzohar is allowed to handle the marriage registration process – even while the rabbinate recognizes the fact that most of their affiliate rabbis are qualified Torah scholars – then what’s stopping all other [religious] groups from coming forward and claiming they are qualified to authorize their own marriages?” Blumenthal feels that Tzohar’s cynical use of what he calls the “secular press” and various public relations efforts have given the rabbinate a bad reputation, which he sees as a desecration of God’s name.In response to Blumenthal’s statements, Rosenberg says that since “Tzohar operates within the legal and halachic guidelines of the rabbinate, it should not be treated any differently than the numerous haredi organizations across Israel that cooperate with the rabbinate.” He adds that, “for many of these couples, Tzohar is their only alternative to civil marriage. Over the past 15 years, Tzohar’s volunteers have married more than 70,000 secular brides and grooms and has done more than any organization in Israel to promote Jewish marriage and thwart assimilation. We are deeply appreciative of the warm support of Israeli society and the national media and look forward to continuing to loyally serve the nation of Israel and the State of Israel.”EINAV ZUCMAN and Ira Peled are a recently married couple living in Tel Aviv who completed their marriage process through Tzohar. Zucman says that she and her husband are “secular Jews and very unconnected to our religion, who grew up on kibbutzim in the north, and were considering traveling abroad when we discovered that Tzohar gave us another alternative.”“We read up on the organization on the Internet and decided to give it a chance,” she says. “Once we met with Tzohar and saw how friendly, welcoming and open they were and how accommodating they were willing to be in terms of the type of wedding ceremony we wanted, we were confident with our decision.”Zucman says that “the rabbi they sent us explained the marriage process thoroughly and the importance of the huppa [wedding canopy], and we were able to connect.”She adds that in addition, Tzohar provided her with bridal classes to teach her about the laws and customs associated with going to the mikve (ritual bath) and ritual purity leading up to the wedding. Zucman says that she has already passed on the information about the organization to some of her secular friends who are also considering flying abroad for a civil ceremony.Despite the apparent great demand for the organization and its services, this past year an initiative was launched to shut Tzohar’s doors by a group of rabbis representing local religious councils around the country who began questioning Tzohar’s approach to performing Jewish marriage rites.Stav explains that the animosity on the part of the local councils toward Tzohar and, for that matter, toward all religious Zionist rabbis who were performing weddings, had in fact been brewing for many years.“Couples would be coming to their local rabbinate, let’s take Tel Aviv for example, to register their marriage, and they would be asked who their rabbi was and who their bride teacher was, and when the answer was Tzohar, time and time again the various local rabbinates became frustrated and started pressuring the country’s Chief Rabbinate to restrain Tzohar’s activities.”Stav says that while seven years ago the Chief Rabbinate released criteria detailing who could perform wedding ceremonies, which “blatantly were discriminatory against Zionist rabbis, blocking most from performing weddings,” those rules only recently became enforced. According to Stav, it was only when the organization saw that the number of couples registering to get married through Tzohar dipped significantly that they realized the establishment had figured out that the rabbinate was telling couples that they would not recognize weddings performed by Tzohar.But Stav and his organization were determined to continue offering their services, and a temporary loophole was found. “We saw that local private haredi Badatz rabbinates had made arrangements with the Chief Rabbinate to conduct weddings in their jurisdictions, even for couples who arrived from outside their area. While the Chief Rabbinate’s criterion states that a couple must register in either the bride’s or groom’s area of residence, these private groups were ignoring those stipulations. So we decided, if you can’t beat them, join them.”Since in addition to running Tzohar Stav is the chief rabbi of the city of Shoham, he decided to allow couples who wanted a Tzohar-style experience, regardless of where they were from, to register their marriages through his local municipality. In 2010, over 1,000 couples registered for weddings in Shoham and in 2011 that number doubled. This further agitated the local rabbinates, which decided to complain to the chief rabbis along with the Religious Affairs Ministry, headed by Ya’acov Margi (Shas).Soon thereafter, Stav received a letter from Margi’s office, indicating that since Tzohar was bending the rules and registering non-Shoham residents in his town, the ministry intended to stop providing the organization with marriage certificates.Despite negotiations between the two sides, the ministry ultimately did stop sending the licenses.In November 2011, Tzohar called a press conference indicating the ministry’s intention to shut down its operation.“We never denied that we were registering couples from all over the country,” says Stav, “but we explained to the media that the real intention of the local rabbinates [using a minor technicality as the excuse] was to restrict non-haredi Zionist rabbis – including heads of communities, heads of major yeshivot and hesders – from conducting weddings.”According to Tzohar, Margi denied that his intention was to shut down Tzohar and claimed that he simply wanted the organization to stick to the country’s legal guidelines.Within 48 hours of the press conference, following front-page headlines, petitions, thousands of emails, texts, and faxes sent to the minister’s office in defense of Tzohar and an intense social media campaign, Margi rescinded his decision to stop sending Tzohar the marriage certificates and offered to explore other legal solutions.JUST LAST month, the Knesset passed the first reading of a joint bill initiated by Kadima and Yisrael Beytenu which would remove zoning restrictions on couples who want to register for marriage outside their local municipal regions. Known as the “Tzohar Bill,” if it passes its second and third readings, the new law will not only allow couples to register anywhere in the country but will call for an improvement in the quality of services and a reduction in red tape for couples that want to get married via their local rabbinates.When asked for clarification on their position with regards to Tzohar, a spokesman from the Religious Affairs Ministry denied that the ministry ever had the intention of shutting down the organization.In fact, the official claims that his office had actually worked in cooperation with Kadima MK Otniel Schneller to draft the text of the “Tzohar Bill.”Despite what seems until now to have been vast and unwavering differences of opinion, it was reported recently that productive negotiations were held between Stav and Metzger, which according to Rosenberg, “will provide uniform standards and equal opportunities for Zionist rabbis to officiate at weddings in their communities, ending a near-decade ban on weddings conducted by Zionist community rabbis, hesder rabbis, heads of women’s seminaries, etc.”The negotiations were launched following the filing of a petition by a group of lawyers (not through Tzohar) with the High Court of Justice against the Chief Rabbinate accusing the rabbinate of placing restrictions on Tzohar’s activities.Blumenthal expressed optimism following the meetings between the two sides.“I know that if we sit together, instead of airing our dirty laundry in public, we can reach compromises,” she said Rojas-Tal remains thankful to Tzohar for making her wedding truly memorable.“We were able to include special prayers for the State of Israel and for the safe return of Gilad Schalit [who was being held prisoner by Hamas at the time[.” She adds, “It was such a beautiful ceremony, so spiritual and so Zionist. The Tzohar rabbi truly made the wedding ours.”She concludes by saying, “When you get married, the last thing you need is to deal with bureaucracy, and Tzohar made the process so much easier. But more than that, I feel that there is something about this organization – that they do their work without ulterior motives, simply to help people and to fulfill mitzvot.”Rosenberg says the bottom line is that “Going forward, Tzohar is looking to make the religious establishment more Zionistinclusive, more efficient, and to re-shape the rabbinate to serve the vast majority of the Israeli public in good faith. We know that this is in the interest in all of Israeli society – haredi, religious and secular alike.”
