The Chief Rabbinate Council announced today a decision which ends all restrictions which for hundreds of years barred Jews from marrying members of India’s Bene Israel community.
The decision resolves a controversial issue of several hundred years existence which erupted recently in charges that members of Bene Israel who have settled in Israel were not permitted to marry Israeli Jews. About 5,000 of the 30,000 Bene Israel Jews have come to Israel since the state was established.
The Chief Rabbinate Council has been debating the issue and the decision climaxed several years of study. Israeli rabbinical objections to such marriage stemmed from the contention that Bene Israel religious marriage and divorce laws differed from those generally practiced among Jews.
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