Orwell would have been proud

16th June 2011

Itay Bar, 36, was born in Kibutz Shoval in the south of Israel.
About a month ago he and his wife, Neta, gave an interview to a column in Haaretz portraying different families in Israel. In the interview Itay mentioned that his father was catholic and his mother's parents were a Jewish Holocaust survivor and a catholic woman. This makes him non-Jewish according to the Halacha, which allows him to work at the Kibutz's dairy farm on Saturday without the farm loosing it's Kosher certificate, saving the Kibutz the trouble of having to hire some non-Jewish outside employee for that purpose.
The couple described their marriage in Las Vegas (with Elvis), and Itay said they could actually be married in Israel with a Rabbi, as he is accidentally registered as Jewish in the Ministry of Interior, but they didn't want to.

In Israel, couples can only get married by a religious clergyman, which means they have to be of same religion (and naturally gay marriages are out of the question).
People get around this by getting married out of the country - such marriages are accepted by the state (not same sex).
Recently there is an increase in young Jewish couples choosing to get married out of the country in protest of the monopoly religious authorities have over marriage.

Last week, requiring some document from the Ministry of Interior, Itay discovered his file is "blocked for service". Someone reported that his status as a Jew is suspect following the publication in the paper... The clerks started questioning him about his Jewishness and tried to get him to sign a request to change his religion status, which he refused. The religion status in official Israeli documents is referred to as "Leom" which translates best to "Nationality" or Ethnic affiliation. Itay considers himself Jewish for those purposes - his family celebrates Jewish holidays with the rest of the kibutz, though like many Jewish Israelis they are atheistic.

If only the Ministry of Interior was as efficient when it comes to providing service.