Rabbanut cancels wedding retroactively

Channel 10 News (Nana) has a story about a couple that got married, through the Rabbanut with a Rabbanut rabbi officiating, who were told three months after the wedding, after they had to chase down the Rabbanut to get an answer as to why they had not yet received their official license, that they are not married and their permission to marry was a clerical mistake.

Until now the Rabbanut was accustomed to canceling conversions retroactively...now they are canceling weddings, that they themselves performed, retroactively.

The Rabbanut claims they had a hard time finding out information about the bride's background - they could not find the rabbi in South Africa that had married her parents way back when, so they just cannot confirm her status as Jewish. The fact that it was already approved is irrelevant as that was simply a clerk that was too hasty and made a mistake and approved it, not realizing they were in the middle of an investigation. Because they cannot confirm her Jewish status, she is not married.

As if her being Jewish depend son the Rabbanut investigator. It does not, and she very well might be married halachically even without the Rabbanut, but here is where the problems really begin.

3 months later the Rabbanut is saying the couple is not married. And the wife is pregnant.

That means, this child will be given the status of a non-Jew according to the Rabbanut. Just because the Rabbanut could not find old information. After they got pregnant after marriage because the Rabbanut said it was ok. And, even if really Jewish, the child will be illegitimate, until the Rabbanut says otherwise. And, how will this affect her need for a gett, at some point int he future if it should ever happen, God forbid? Will they make her have a gett or will they say she is not Jewish? And, how will that affect future children, perhaps from a different marriage to either a Jew or a non-Jew - will future children be mamzeirim?

The biggest problem here is not even the mistake that was made. Mistakes happen, even with human victims and horrific ramifications. The biggest problem is the behavior of the Rabbanut in response to the mistake. As soon as they discovered the mistake they should have contacted the couple and let them know there was a problem and to avoid getting pregnant. Besides for that, they should have doubled and tripled their efforts to find a resolution, so that they would not have to destroy these people's lives.

Instead they simply avoided the couple for three months and simply writes it off as a mistake without offering any hope for a resolution.

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