To the cheers of mazeltov and the flutter of rose petals, four gay Israeli couples took their wedding vows in Canada on Friday, saying they hoped to break down marriage barriers in their nation and open doors for others to have their unions recognized.
Etai Pinkas, 31, a member of the Tel Aviv city council, and his boyfriend of five years, 32-year-old Yoav Arad, said they know when they go back home they will have to fight to get their marriage registered. Pinkas said he is prepared to go the Israeli Supreme Court, if necessary.
"We've been living in, quote `sin,' for five-and-a-half years and nothing is really going to change in our day-to-day lives," Arad, the manager of a real estate company in Tel Aviv, said of the marriage ceremony, where they exchanged gold rings crafted by his mother. "But I personally don't feel that the state should be allowed to permit, or not permit, our partnership."
PHOTO: AP
They came to Toronto, the capital of Ontario, because the province is one of seven in Canada that allows marriage among same-sex couples. The Canadian Parliament is debating legislation that would legalize gay marriage nationwide.
The Netherlands and Belgium currently are the only countries that permit couples of the same sex to wed, though one member of the couple must be a citizen of that nation. Several other countries allow some form of civil unions, but they generally don't oblige the state to grant the same rights and protections as men and women have under traditional marriages.
The four couples, surrounded by friends and family, were welcomed at Toronto City Hall by a justice who asked the men to repeat traditional vows -- using the word "spouse" where there might have been "wife" -- exchange rings and kiss after being pronounced officially married.
In Israel, the Orthodox rabbinate has exclusive control of Jewish marriages. That means non-Orthodox rabbis are not allowed to perform marriage ceremonies, an increasingly unpopular law among Israelis which leads to many couples going overseas to marry in civil ceremonies. Orthodox rabbis consider homosexuality sinful and refuse to condone same-sex marriages.
Rabbi David Lazar of the Tiferet Shalom synagogue in Tel Aviv, traveled with the men as a witness and to offer prayers in Hebrew after each couple said their vows.
"You will do a ceremony with me in Tel Aviv, under the chupah one day," Lazar told one couple after they were pronounced married, referring to the traditional canopy of Jewish weddings. "We'll make sure that others continue to come here until we change the system."
Lazar said even in his conservative synagogue, most Israelis believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to wed. Under international norms, Israel should recognize a Canadian marriage license.
However, a spokesman for the Israeli Interior Ministry, Sabin Hadad, said Israeli law does not recognize same-sex marriages, no matter where they occur. "The moment it does, we will register them," he said.
Jacob Galanti, a Justice Ministry spokesman, said that while Israel does not permit gay unions, "it does recognize the social and economic rights of the partners."
Not entirely, according to Russell Lord and Ari Ozeri, another of the four couples to wed at Toronto City Hall. The two men, both 47, have been together for 23 years.
Ozeri said he worked for one of the largest banks in Israel for 21 years, yet his pension would not go to Lord should he die before his partner.
"He's not allowed to get a penny and that's just not fair," said Ozeri, who now works in the hotel industry in Tel Aviv.
"I don't need City Hall or any priest or rabbi to tell me what we have together," said Lord, a tour operator. "But it's just not fair that we pay our taxes and do our military service like every other responsible citizen, but we don't have any rights."
The couples were being followed for several days by Out TV, a Canadian cable network devoted to gay lifestyles. The show, "I Now Pronounce You ...," which focuses on gay weddings in Canada and the US, will be hosted by Canadian comedian Trevor Boris and will air in August.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to