The Religions Ceremony

In Israel it is not possible anymore for two persons from different religions to get officially married. It started with the Jewish clergy (Rabanoot), who wanted to have control over who can get married and who can't (in Judaism bastards are not allowed to get married), so they opposed any kind of civil marriage, so civil marriage was never instated in the state of Israel. Then it was a question of what to do with the Muslims and Christians, and it was decided that the Muslim Clergy and the Christian Clergy, would also receive total control over marriages of Muslims and Christians respectively, similar to their Jewish counterpart.

Still, according to Islamic Religion (Sharia’ah) it is allowed for a Muslim man to marry a Jewish or a Christian woman, and this was the case in Israel until recently. Then for some reason the Muslim Clergy (Al-Mahkama Al-Shara’iah) decided to follow in the steps of its Jewish counter part, and stopped endorsing mixed religion marriages. Now I don’t know if this was their decision or if it was imposed on them by the state, but I do know is that they starting opposing something which is explicitly allowed in Islam (Halal). Now it is required of the woman to change its religion to Islam, before the are willing to hand out a marriage certificate.

Now the process of turning into a Muslim is simpler than in other religions; e.g in Judaism one is required to go through a 1.5 year conversion process (Gior), before being declared a Jew, reformist Jews made this conversion process simpler and shorter, but there conversions are not recognized by the Rabanoot, and the Rabanoot word is the one that counts in Israel. To become a Christian one would have to be Baptized, and priests are generally reluctant to convert anyone, unless they are sure he is doing it from pure faith reasons. Islam has the simplest initiation process out of the three religions, one just needs to say two sentences: Ashhad an la ilah illa Allah, washlad ana Muhamadan rasulu Allah; it basically means that one recognizes that there is one God, and that Muhammad is his prophet, and that makes him officially a Muslim.

I knew my wife would have objections to get converted to Islam, so I decided to not bring up this Issue before our wedding, but at the same time I wanted my marriage to be accepted in the eyes of the family, I did not want to give the religions member in my family, any reason to pester about religions issues. I decided to have a religious ceremony, conducted by a religious man (Shekh); a ceremony which is perfectly proper from religions point of view, but would not be recognized by the state of Israel.

I encountered a problem finding a religions man that would marry us; the official religions men (Shekhs), who are actually employees of the state, and they have been explicitly forbidden from sanctioning off the record marriages. So I had to find a Shekh who was not employed by the state, finally I managed to find someone with some help; a Shekh who is married to four woman (sll off the record of course, because it would not allowed by the laws of Israel), and he would readily help anyone who seeks to get married off the record, for the small fee of 300 Shekels (~60 Euros).

The Muslim wedding ceremony would seem strange to Westerners, and would probably be abhorred by feminists; the actually ceremony does not take place between the bride and the groom; the bride must choose a man to represent her in the marriage, usually it is the father of the bride, or some other senior man of her family. Since my wife had no body from her family here, the honor went to one of my uncles. I explained to Mauge what to do; she told the Shekh that she accept my ancle Saa’do as her representative (I taught her how to say yes I agree in Arabic), then the ceremony took place between me and my uncle; Mauge was not present. The Shekh explained to us what is required from the husband and the wife; the man must treat his wife with kindness (no beating of the wife), and the woman is required to obey her husband. The Shekh specifically stressed the kindness part to me, telling me that Westerners think we are barbaric people, and we treat our wives badly, and we must show them that this absolutely not true. Then I held hands with my uncle (I am not joking), and we each said our vows, which were dictated word by word to us by the priest.

So now I managed to have a wedding which would recognized by family, and with out having to bring the issue of religion in front my wife. But alas this type of marriage is not recognized by the state of Israel, and we would have to find a solution for this, if we are to obtain residency for my Wife and Alejandro.

Officially Married (Sort of)

Arriving to this new country (for my girlfriend at least), we had only a couple of weeks to prepare ourselves for the wedding, this is in addition to getting our apartment up to shape; buying all kinds of necessary stuff like a washing machine, cloth hangers, groceries, etc. For the wedding we had to buy cloth for me the bride and for Ale, two sets of cloth for each night of the wedding, and some more less formal cloth for the preceding nights.

In reality the wedding started almost a week before the actual wedding day; every night family, friends and neighbors gathered, in our family house (that of my mother), and we had food, music and dancing, we call these nights: Ta'aleel, they constitute a warm up for the final two days of the wedding. They started with a small number of people, and this number increased each night, up to the final.

The final days of the wedding are the official ones, the ones we sent people get invitations for. The first night we had a dinner followed by the ceremonies of the Hla'a (Shaving) and Henna.


These are the tradional ceremonies of the Palestinian Arabic wedding.

In the ceremony of the Hla'a I basically get my beard shaved in public.

In the Henna ceremony they pain our hands with Henna.

My girlfriend was not so happy with here making during this night, they had over done her make up, and she was upset she did not look at all like herself, I have to agree with here, I barely recognized here when she came back from the ladies saloon. This happened in spite of us making very clear that we would like her to look natural during the wedding. Well at least after the fiasco of the first night, they got the message, and here making for the final night was more natural, and quite to our liking.


The final night of the wedding was held in a wedding hall, in the style of western wedding.


I had my suit and tie and the bride wore her white dress.


My mother had the choice of who to invite for the first night, but I made the calls when it came to the wedding hall, we, mi and my bride, wanted to have a small party, with only close friends and family invited, in total we had 130 persons, including the kids, and we had a lovely party.

Mauge managed to get in touch with a friend from Bolivia who lives in Haifa, close by. Actually she never knew this woman before, but they had a common friend, and she invited her to our wedding, she arrived with her husband, who is from New Zealand, both are working in the World Baha'i center in Haifa. It was nice for Mauge to have someone to talk to in Spanish during the wedding.

Mostly Arabic music was played, but I had prepared a compilation of Latin songs on a CD, and we had Manu Chao during the warm up, and later we had Juanes 'A Dios Le Pido' to dance, which was a big hit, and I found to be the best part of the party, a lot of people joined to dance, it was the closing song of the party, and unfortunately the photographer had shut down his equipment so it was never filed. I personally enjoyed dancing to this more than any of the Arabic songs that had been played in the wedding.


Now in the next post I will explain why I am only 'sort of' married officially.