The Chief Rabbinate of Netanya is forcing married Soviet immigrants to be remarried in a religious ceremony, according to Soviet immigrants living at the Ben-Yehuda Absorption Center there.
In a story Tuesday in Ma’ariv, one of the Soviet immigrants who was asked to remarry said that rabbinate officials came to interrogate him and his wife about their Jewishness and their marriages.
When he told them that they were Jewish, but had no marriage certificate, the rabbi told him he would have to marry according to Jewish law. Though the immigrant did not wish to do so, he was persuaded to by his friends.
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.
