Q&A: Marriage Outside the Rabbinate
Marriage Outside the Rabbinate
Question
Hello,
I heard that the Rabbi performs weddings outside the Rabbinate. If a wedding is conducted outside the Rabbinate (but I still want a rabbi to officiate), is it okay if the bride is Christian, and is there any halakhic problem if the priest takes part in the ceremony? If that is possible, I would be happy to know, please, how much the Rabbi charges for conducting a wedding and how one can get in touch.
Answer
Is this a troll? I do not officiate at marriages. A Christian bride cannot be married through kiddushin—not through the Rabbinate, not outside it, and not on the moon either. The priest can take part in the ceremony as much as he likes, because there is no such ceremony.
Discussion on Answer
Mr. Dvir Levy, thanks for judging favorably, but the truth is that I really did come to troll.
It sounds serious. A person wants to get married and feels a connection to the Jewish people. He understood that the Rabbinate would not marry him to his Christian girlfriend, so he looked for a real rabbi who officiates at a civil wedding. He doesn't know the Jewish law; he thinks that the impossibility of marrying a non-Jewish woman is an invention of the Jewish state and the Chief Rabbinate..