[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

According to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), a growing number of Israeli couples are living with one another with Keddushin R”L. Hiddush has released a report based on these numbers, showing the number of couple married in Israel fell by 6.5% while the number of couples living together increased by 29%.

Over the course of two years, the number of unmarried couples living together in Israel increased dramatically by 28%, or nearly 20,000 couples. In 2012 there were 69,000 unmarried couples living together, and that number jumped to 88,000 in 2014 (the last year for which Israel CBS data is available). During this same period, the number of Jewish couples who got married in Israel fell by 6.5%. These are the findings of Hiddush’s analysis of CBS data.

According to data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 50,800 couples (of all faiths) got married in Israel in 2014. All of these were married in religious wedding ceremonies, which are the only ceremonies officially recognized by the State of Israel. These data do not include weddings that were not officially recognized by the State, nor civil marriages that were conducted abroad.

The number of couples (of all faiths) that got married in Israel in 2014 was 3.6% lower than the number that got married in Israel in 2013, which was 52,700. This drop came despite a 2% growth in Israel’s population. Hiddush’s analysis revealed the greatest decrease in domestically performed wedding ceremonies was in the Jewish sector. The number of Muslim weddings actually increased by 5% (from 11,300 in 2013 to 11,900 in 2014). In contrast, the Jewish sector experienced a significant drop of 6.5% – from 39,400 to 36,900.

Hiddush blames the Chief Rabbinate, issuing a statement reading “Israel’s official, state empowered religious establishment arouses disgust among Jewish Israeli couples considering marriage. This is due to the needless tribulations many couples experience at the hands of the Rabbinate on their paths to marriage, and due to their fear of being required to conduct their divorces via the State rabbinical courts. Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and rabbinical courts are Judaism’s greatest enemy.”

Regev adds that it is most ironic that it is the Chief Rabbinate which is directly responsible for the eroding of the family institution in Israel.

Israeli CBS data published in recent years indicates the main reason for the decline in Jewish marriages: a dramatic increase in the number of unmarried couples living together, which is relatively low compared to most of the western world. In 2012, there were 69,000 unmarried couples living together in Israel, and this number increased over two years to 88,000. During that same period, the number of unmarried Jewish couples living together in Israel jumped from 65,000 to 84,000 (an increase of 29%). This is a significant increase in the number of such couples, which increased from 5% to 6.1% of the Jewish population.

However, the drop in the number of Israeli couples marrying overseas is more difficult to explain. One possible reason for this decrease is that such couples often report their marriages to the Ministry of the Interior more than a year after their weddings, and some do not register their marriages at all. A second reason may be that the total number of couples who registered their marriages with the Ministry of the Interior also fell during this period – from 9,500 to 8,800 in 2014, a total decrease of 7.5%. A large portion of these couples include those who, for various reasons, cannot officially get married in Israel – for example, Jews marrying non-Jews, or Jews marrying individuals registered by the Ministry of the Interior as “having no religion,” including some 350,000 immigrants from the Former Soviet Union whose fathers are Jewish, but whose mothers are not.

While Hiddush is far from representing frum Jewry, the numbers speak for themselves and what is true is that a growing number of Israelis are unwilling to enter the Chief Rabbinate system, which has a less than pristine reputation and led to the launch of Tzohar Rabbonim.

In addition, over a million immigrants have arrived from the Former Soviet Union over the years and many feel the Chief Rabbinate has yet to set a system in place to assist them when it comes to marriage registration, many told they must gather the information to prove their Jewish roots on their own. This is one of the area that has led to Tzohar growing in popularity as candidates for marriage find a warm, friendly helpful face when seeking assistance while in the rabbinate; one usually finds a curt, rude and unhelpful clerk who too often just throws out a list of criteria that must be met without any offer of assistance.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)