Weddings in Israel

Masorti Movement Woos Israelis, Urging:
"Play the Wedding Game"
In 3 Days, More Than 25,000 Respond

Bold Advertising Campaign in Internet, Broadcast and Print Outlets across Israel Challenges Orthodox Monopoly on Marriage Rites, Stirring Widespread Interest and Political Protest

New York, NY, June 19, 2008 - In a media blitz launched Sunday, June 15th that directly challenges the Orthodox monopoly on weddings in Israel, the Masorti movement, affiliated with the Conservative movement in the United States and worldwide, is making an appeal to Jewish Israeli couples increasingly disenchanted with the established system. An estimated 20 percent or more of Israelis who each year choose to live together as couples do so outside the framework of the Office of the Chief Rabbinate, either by not participating in any wedding ceremony or by limiting themselves to a civil ceremony in Cyprus or elsewhere.

The Masorti campaign communicates to Israeli couples that they can have a fully traditional wedding, but one that is also pluralistic. The wedding ceremony may incorporate special touches of personal interest to the couple, including an egalitarian approach.

The print ads and commercials on radio and Internet sites direct readers and listeners to a website set up for the campaign. They are already generating results. In just three days, the Masorti movement office in Jerusalem reported more than 25,000 unique hits to the website and dozens of phone calls from interested couples.

At the same time, the campaign has raised the ire of Shas. The Chairman of Shas in the Knesset, Yaakov Margi, petitioned the Israel Broadcasting Authority to ban the Masorti campaign from the airwaves. In a letter to Mordechai Sklar, IBA's general director, MK Yaakov Margi charged that the Masorti movement "knowingly misleads and perpetrates a campaign of fraud." He further claimed to be writing on behalf of "those who are spiritually lost and would not want to find themselves ending up in unseemly places."

MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) responded in his own letter to the IBA that Masorti "faithfully combines tradition and progress" and suggested the Shas letter should be buried as "a foolish attempt at censorship."

Masorti's clever new online "Wedding Game" uses colorful, animated graphics and an interactive format to convey the personalized, contemporary approach to wedding ceremonies that Masorti offers prospective brides and grooms. Couples learn they can opt to have a traditional, fully halakhic ceremony that simultaneously accommodates pluralistic practice, performed by a rabbi who will meet with them more than once prior to the actual ceremony to create a personal bond.

"Our young people are being driven away from traditional marriage ceremonies by the difficulty of dealing with the Office of the Chief Rabbinate," observed Masorti Executive Director Yizhar Hess, outlining the goals of the campaign. "Under the guidelines of the 'Masorti chuppah,' couples may customize their ceremonies to meet their personal needs without sacrificing halakhic requirements and the connection to Jewish tradition. It is important to make all Israelis aware that this religious alternative exists."

Visitors to the Wedding Game website are led through a series of choices (venue, invitations to special guests, food, etc.) that concludes with an option to select a Masorti chuppah. The Jewish legal requirements are explained in detail before couples are urged to contact the Masorti movement for more information. (Couples are advised, for example, to have a civil ceremony performed outside of Israel to supplement the Masorti chuppah so that their marriages will be legally recognized by the State. They are informed that if they want to divorce, they will need a get. They are also encouraged to sign a pre-nuptial agreement which sets forth monthly financial penalties for any party refusing to free the other in the event of a divorce. This pre-nuptial agreement would be subject to the authority of the civil courts.)

Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, director of Masorti's Wedding Initiative, is delighted with the campaign thus far. She described the movement's collaboration with the Israeli marketing agency Loop Interactive as "an innovative creative strategy, brilliantly executed, to reach today's young Israeli couples who are seeking to renew ties to their Jewish tradition and heritage in accordance with their personal values, which are open to the realities of modern life."

Reporters/Editors: For interview opportunities, in the United States, please call Jane Calem Rosen, director of communications at the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel, at (212) 870-2216 or email jrosen@masorti.org. To reach the Masorti movement in Israel, please call Shmuel Dovrat, director of public relations, at 052-668-6508 (from the US 011-972-52-668-6508) or email pr@masorti.org.


Masorti Movement: Promoting Religious Pluralism and Building Community through Inclusive, Traditional, Egalitarian Judaism