Hello, Uri.
Like many others, I was shocked this morning to read the article about Dov Hayon's arrest. I saw that you are his lawyer, and I thought I would draw your attention to a few important points (which you are probably aware of at least some of):
1. The language of the law does not prohibit conducting marriages outside the rabbinate, but rather the failure to register marriages conducted in accordance with the law. I am attaching my article on the interpretation of Section 7 of the Marriage Ordinance. See also Section 7 below on the position of the Attorney General on the matter.
2. If the groom is a bastard as they claim, then the kiddushin does not apply and it is not kaddamoy. So what is the problem with marrying them? According to them, the law also prohibits kiddushin as kaddamoy. The law cannot prohibit me from conducting fictitious ceremonies that do not apply, and it does not do so.
3. If, according to their theory, he is a bastard, and even if they do not accept my comment from section 2, then their status is at most like that of a priest and a divorced woman, who are required by law to register even if they were married outside the rabbinate, since the rabbinate does not allow them to marry through it. Is the rabbinate willing to marry him as a bastard? So again, what do they want from him and from them?
4. This is selective enforcement, of course, since there are thousands of such marriages every year in Israel, including by Orthodox rabbis (including your faithful servant). There are organizations that deal with this in an organized manner and advertise the matter openly (such as the Dead End and the Private Marriage Initiative, Tomer Persico, and others).
5. Although I am not a lawyer, I did not understand how the Rabbinate Court sends the police to arrest a person. It would also be wrong to assume that their status is the same as that of judges, and that a judge can send the police to arrest someone just because he learned that they are committing an offense? At most, he can complain to the police like any other citizen.
6. The decision whether to arrest or interrogate a person depends on the interpretation of the law and not on halacha. Therefore, the Court of Justice is not authorized to order this even in the area of personal status. They are not jurists. Regarding the interpretation of the law, see Section 1.
7. There is a letter from Shuki Lemberger, the Deputy State Attorney, to whom the Attorney General of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (PAT) addressed a demand to investigate Abed HaNe'man and other rabbis who engage in private marriages. He replied that the policy of the State Attorney's Office is that these cases should not be investigated because of the ambiguity of the law (I assume he meant what I wrote in section 1, although I have not seen the original letter). So who made the decision to arrest Hayun and interrogate him, contrary to the State Attorney's Office's interpretation? The court? See sections 5-7.
The article I saw about Shuki Lemberger's letter appears on the news1 website, dated July 4, 2018 (by Itamar Levin and Idan Yosef). You need to register there to enter.
Here is what I found online (Google search: Attorney General's Office: We will not enforce a vague law that the Knesset did not coordinate with us): http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-404019-00.html
Long live Ayatollah Khomeini and long live the revolution!
Hello, Uri.
Like many others, I was shocked this morning to read the article about Dov Hayon's arrest. I saw that you are his lawyer, and I thought I would draw your attention to a few important points (which you are probably aware of at least some of):
1. The language of the law does not prohibit conducting marriages outside the rabbinate, but rather the failure to register marriages conducted in accordance with the law. I am attaching my article on the interpretation of Section 7 of the Marriage Ordinance. See also Section 7 below on the position of the Attorney General on the matter.
2. If the groom is a bastard as they claim, then the kiddushin does not apply and it is not kaddamoy. So what is the problem with marrying them? According to them, the law also prohibits kiddushin as kaddamoy. The law cannot prohibit me from conducting fictitious ceremonies that do not apply, and it does not do so.
3. If, according to their theory, he is a bastard, and even if they do not accept my comment from section 2, then their status is at most like that of a priest and a divorced woman, who are required by law to register even if they were married outside the rabbinate, since the rabbinate does not allow them to marry through it. Is the rabbinate willing to marry him as a bastard? So again, what do they want from him and from them?
4. This is selective enforcement, of course, since there are thousands of such marriages every year in Israel, including by Orthodox rabbis (including your faithful servant). There are organizations that deal with this in an organized manner and advertise the matter openly (such as the Dead End and the Private Marriage Initiative, Tomer Persico, and others).
5. Although I am not a lawyer, I did not understand how the Rabbinate Court sends the police to arrest a person. It would also be wrong to assume that their status is the same as that of judges, and that a judge can send the police to arrest someone just because he learned that they are committing an offense? At most, he can complain to the police like any other citizen.
6. The decision whether to arrest or interrogate a person depends on the interpretation of the law and not on halacha. Therefore, the Court of Justice is not authorized to order this even in the area of personal status. They are not jurists. Regarding the interpretation of the law, see Section 1.
7. There is a letter from Shuki Lemberger, the Deputy State Attorney, to whom the Attorney General of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (PAT) addressed a demand to investigate Abed HaNe'man and other rabbis who engage in private marriages. He replied that the policy of the State Attorney's Office is that these cases should not be investigated because of the ambiguity of the law (I assume he meant what I wrote in section 1, although I have not seen the original letter). So who made the decision to arrest Hayun and interrogate him, contrary to the State Attorney's Office's interpretation? The court? See sections 5-7.
The article I saw about Shuki Lemberger's letter appears on the news1 website, dated July 4, 2018 (by Itamar Levin and Idan Yosef). You need to register there to enter.
Here is what I found online (Google search: Attorney General's Office: We will not enforce a vague law that the Knesset did not coordinate with us):
http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-404019-00.html
Long live Ayatollah Khomeini and long live the revolution!