Q&A: The Rabbinate and Mamzerim
The Rabbinate and Mamzerim
Question
Have a good week.
In one of the recent columns I saw that the Rabbi wrote, in response to one of the questions, that the Rabbinate creates far more mamzerim than would exist otherwise. Could the Rabbi explain why? It would seem obvious, after all, that without the Rabbinate’s registration records, masses of people would marry with halakhically valid kiddushin according to Jewish law, and many would not divorce according to Jewish law.
Answer
Absolutely not. I’m not talking about completely giving up regulation. On the contrary, those who turn to me I require to register even if they were married outside the Rabbinate (except that the Rabbinate is unwilling to register them, against the law and through various lies). My claim is that there should be regulation of marriage just as there is in every legal system in the world. You can register at the municipality or in court, and whoever does this according to the law of Moses and Israel will be registered as having done so.
Because of the Rabbinate’s scandalous conduct, functioning as a monopoly and not merely as a regulator, very many people who want to marry according to the law of Moses and Israel do so not through the Rabbinate and also do not register anywhere. That creates a very serious problem in the area of personal status. If the Rabbinate were only a regulatory body that did not force its nonsense on people the way the Rabbinate does today, then anyone who wanted to marry according to the law of Moses and Israel would do so, register, and that would be that. Anyone who does not want to marry according to the law of Moses and Israel would not do so either way.
Closing the Rabbinate would be an unqualified gain. And the most absurd thing is that they claim their actions are meant to save personal status in Israel. Their very existence is what destroys it.