In response to Israeli Ethiopian couples often having difficulty marrying, Tzohar Rabbonim is calling on them to marry with the organization’s rabbonim instead of via the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Tzohar leader Rabbi David Stav calls on members of Israel’s Ethiopian community who underwent giyur via Tzohar to circumvent the Chief Rabbinate and get married with Tzohar as well.
Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) released a report that Ethiopian couples often experience difficulty when they wish to get married as local religious councils often question their Jewish status. Rabbi Stav announces that Tzohar marries 5,000 couples annually will gladly marry Israeli Ethiopians who underwent giyur via the organization.
Rabbi Stav adds “We are doing our best for young Ethiopian couples to come to Tzohar and join the thousands of couples marrying via Tzohar annually. We will do our utmost to marry them כדת משה וישראל in line with the criteria of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel without stumbling blocks or prolonged bureaucracy”.
Tzohar Rabbonim officials’ are planning to meet with leaders of this community towards assisting them in understanding their options.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
Is Rabbi Stav trying to prove he’s really Reform i.e. against Orthodox halacha? To try and “solve” the rabbanut’s deficiencies by degrading halacha is quite simply the way of Reform. The result is catastrophe.
Why do you keep writing “RABBI” this guy is going against all rabanim,and wants to mess up klal yisroel. He’s just like Lapid,if your calling him Rabbi, then call Lapid Rav yair-doesn’t sound bad actually…
Tzohar is the Israeli version of the Reform movement. These immigrants aren’t Jewish. So it is the perfect fit.
“Tzohar is the Israeli version of the Reform movement. ”
I would say the Conservative movement. Maybe just semantics because either way halacha is being twisted.
A couple years ago Rav Ovadia Yosef said that Tzohar rabbis (or maybe just Stav) were reshaim. I thought it a bit harsh, but held my peace. The Hacham has proven correct. BTW, I do realize that the Hacham has a lenient opinion concerning Ethiopians.
1. Jewish marriages do not require the participation of a clergyman. All it takes is two people eligible to get married and kosher witnesses.
3. If the individuals in question are in fact Jews there shouldn’t be a problem so one shoujld ask why the official zoinist rabbinate is hesitating to approve their marriages (the approval being a secular government requirement, not a halachic one). If they are goyim (and many Ethiopian goyim have come as migrants, legal or not, to Israel), is Tzohar offering them a marriage that isn’t valid by halacha or governmetn laws?
4. When he talks about “converts” who converted with his organization, is he talking about Christian or Muslim Ethiopians who converted, or Ethiopian Jews whose conversion was to resolve possible doubts that they might alternatively be goyim or mamzerim.
#1 & #3
We all ought to oppose Stav & co. as strongly as possible
However,he is still better than many so called left leaning modern orthodox although he makes more noise
Calling him reform is going somewhat too far