Israeli marriage law

Marriages in Israel can be performed only under the auspices of the religious community to which couples belong, and no religious intermarriages can be performed legally in Israel. Matrimonial law is based on the Millet or confessional community system employed in the Ottoman Empire, which was not modified during the British Mandate and remains in force in the State of Israel.

In addition to the respective faiths of Jewish, Muslim and Druze communities in Israel, Israel recognizes ten distinct denominations of Christianity. Marriages in each community are under the jurisdiction of their own religious authorities. The religious authority for Jewish marriages performed in Israel is the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Rabbinical courts. The Israeli Interior Ministry registers marriages on presentation of proper documentation. Israel’s religious authorities — the only entities authorized to perform weddings in Israel — are prohibited from marrying couples unless both partners share the same religion. Therefore, interfaith couples can be legally married in Israel only if one of the partners converts to the religion of the other. However, civil, interfaith and same-sex marriages entered into abroad are recognised by the state.

It is illegal under Penal Law Amendment (Bigamy) Law, 5719 (1959), to marry in Israel while already married. This applies to members of each confessional community, including the Jewish and Muslim, even though it is allowed in the Torah (but was banned by rabbinic decree for European Jews over 1,000 years ago) and the Quran. Despite its criminalization under Israeli law, polygyny is nevertheless still practiced by Israel’s Muslim Bedouin community, where about 25% of men are believed to have more than one wife, and it is also recognized for existing marriages of immigrant Jews from diaspora communities where polygyny was never outlawed by rabbinical decree, mostly among some Yemenite Jews, though these are extremely rare cases.

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