The religious establishment is under court order to facilitate marriages within the Ethiopian Jewish community.
Israel’s High Court of Justice gave the Ministry of Religious Affairs 90 days Sunday to establish an “Institute for the Heritage of Ethiopian Jewry” to settle controversies surrounding Ethiopian marriages.
The court, acting on the appeal of Beita Israel, the organization of Ethiopian immigrants, also criticized the ministry for foot-dragging on the issue.
The problem arose when the Chief Rabbinate refused to recognize the marriages of Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia, unless the couples underwent special conversion rites.
The Ethiopian Jews who are devout took offense to that demand.
After a sit-down of several days’ duration outside the rabbinate headquarters in Jerusalem in October 1985, a settlement was reached.
The Ethiopians, the Religious Affairs Ministry and the Chief Rabbinate Council agreed to set up the heritage institute, which would rule in cases where the Jewish authenticity of an Ethiopian immigrant was questioned. But the institute has yet to be established.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
