Population Authority refuses to register online Utah civil marriages

The Population Authority has decided not to recognize or register civil marriages performed online for Israeli couples under the auspices of the US state of Utah, a decision which may create tension within the government. 

Utah’s service, which several hundred Israelis have now utilized, would provide a civil marriage option to all Israelןs without them needing to travel abroad, something which has never been possible since the founding of the state due to the objections of religious and ultra-Orthodox parties. 

The decision by the authority, which is under the auspices of the Interior Ministry, comes in response to a legal petition demanding the marriages be registered.

The development will stymie the Utah civil marriage option for the moment, although it will be challenged in court by some of the 500 couples who have married through the state’s service. 

Asked by the Post for comment about the minister’s position on the online Utah civil marriages, a spokeswoman for Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said that issue had “not yet been brought to her desk.”

In 2019, when she headed Yamina, Shaked told The Jerusalem Post that she personally opposed civil marriage, and that her party did as well.

Advocates for civil marriage believe the chances of success in court for the petition against the Interior Ministry are extremely high.

It is possible that the government will be able to avoid a potentially explosive political decision, which would be bitterly opposed by the ultra-Orthodox parties, with the knowledge that the courts will ultimately force the ministry to register the marriages anyway.

Alternate Prime Minister and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid; Health Minister and Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz; and Finance Minister and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman all refused to respond to a request for comment on Shaked’s decision.

Asked for comment, Transportation Minister and Labor leader Merav Michaeli criticized the inability of many Israelis to marry in civil ceremonies, although did not respond to Shaked’s decision.

The controversy over Utah’s online civil marriages developed last year during the COVID-19 crisis, in which some of the thousands of couples who marry every year in civil wedding ceremonies abroad were unable to get married due to the global pandemic and the restrictions on international travel it caused.

Tens of thousands of Israelis cannot get married in Israel at all, since there is no provision for civil marriage in the country and the Chief Rabbinate will not marry them due to various restrictions of Jewish law, or due to the fact that they are gay.

Others seek to avoid marrying through the Chief Rabbinate for ideological reasons.

Many such couples fly to Cyprus, the Czech Republic, the US and other locations to marry in civil ceremonies, which are then recognized by the Population and Immigration Authority of the Interior Ministry.

The process is however expensive and burdensome, and proved impossible during the height of the pandemic, making it impossible for thousands of Israeli couples to get married in any way.

In 2020, the state of Utah began offering online civil marriage, and several Israeli couples decided to utilize this service to enable them to get married.

Several couples who got married in this manner presented all their documentation to their local branch of the Population and Immigration Authority and had their weddings successfully registered by the authority.

Some 20 couples have managed to register their marriages in different branches of the population authority around the country.

When officials in other branches questioned the documentation, an order eventually came down from then Interior Minister and Shas leader MK Arye Deri, who opposes civil marriage, to freeze the process of registering the marriages.

But some 500 Israeli couples have now taken advantage of the Utah service, the large majority of whom have not been able to register their marriages.

Deri’s office said the Interior Ministry was conducting “an in-depth examination” of the wedding and registration process which he said the state has not encountered before.

Two legal petitions were subsequently filed against Deri’s decision to suspend registration of these marriages, one in the Lod district court and one in the Jerusalem district court.

The Interior Ministry under Deri requested several extensions from the Lod court, which insisted that the ministry make a decision as to whether or not it will recognize the Utah marriages.

But at the end of May the court’s patience ran out and it gave the Interior Ministry until this coming Wednesday to make a decision on whether to recognize the Utah marriages, and inform the court of its decision by July 7.

Shaked’s office told The Jerusalem Post that “the position of the Population and Immigration Authority is based on a legal analysis, according to which since the weddings under discussion were conducted in Israel, Israeli law applies to them, which does not recognize the validity of these weddings.”

Shaked’s office said this decision had been passed on to the Attorney- General’s Office, which approved it.

The Population and Immigration Authority asserted that the marriages, although performed through Utah, were held in Israel, and that if the couples could not produce Israeli marriage certificates they would not be able to register as married, meaning it will refuse to register the Utah marriages.

According to Attorney Vlad Finkelshtein who is representing several of the couples in the petition filed to the Lod court, a High Court ruling from 1962 requires the Interior Ministry to recognize a civil marriage if performed legally in another country.

He says that since the Utah online marriages are recognized by the State of Utah and the United States government, Israel’s Interior Ministry is legally bound to register the couples as married Israel.

Finkelshtein said that the validity of the marriages was not relevant, but rather whether or not the Population Authority has an obligation to register a public document which has been verified by an apostille.

Valentina Levin from Bat Yam recently married her partner Alina in a Utah online civil marriage. They were one of the few couples who were able to successfully register their marriage with the Population and Immigration Authority.

Since Valentina and Alina are a same-sex couple they could not marry in Israel and were unable to travel abroad to get married throughout the pandemic.

Speaking to the Post, Valentina said the Utah marriages were a good solution to for couples unable to marry in Israel, noting that marrying abroad would have cost her and her partner at least NIS 20,000.

“We are a democratic country, I have freedom of choice and I have the right to marry how I want, not how they want,” said Valentina.

She added that it had been very important for her and Alina to get married to demonstrate to their children that they were a family unit.

“It was important for us to show that we’re married and that we are a real family in every respect,” said Valentina.

Asked whether the Utah marriages absolve Israel of the necessity of providing its own civil marriage framework, she said that the State of Israel needs to decide for itself if it wants to do good for its own citizens, and will be considerate of all its citizens.”