For the first time in Australia, a rabbi will conduct interfaith weddings

Rather than rejecting Jews for "marrying out", a controversial rabbi wants to welcome non-Jews "marrying in". DEBORAH STONE reports.

In an Australian first, a rabbi has announced he will perform wedding ceremonies for mixed Jewish and non-Jewish couples. Rabbi Gersh Lazarow will offer civil ceremonies with Jewish elements through his new social enterprise Shtiebel, providing an option that no synagogue in Australia endorses.

Rabbi Lazarow is a controversial figure who is on the outer from the progressive Jewish community that previously employed him. Earlier this year he was censured by the international rabbinical peak body of the Reform movement for conduct relating to plagiarism and bullying during his tenure as a rabbi at Melbourne's Temple Beth Israel, which ended in a major rift within the congregation early last year. He is prohibited from serving as a rabbi in a supervisory or management capacity by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR).

He is still able to conduct Jewish weddings for those who don't want an affiliated synagogue but he has also qualified as a civil celebrant so that he can conduct civil ceremonies, which will incorporate those Jewish traditions the couple chooses. He says those ceremonies will be available to intermarrying couples.

Rabbi Lazarow is not the first Jewish civil celebrant in Australia servicing people who want a culturally Jewish wedding without the impositions of Jewish law, but he is the first rabbi in Australia to offer civil Jewish weddings and the first to marry Jews to non-Jews.

“I’m really excited to finally be able to say "yes" to all couples seeking my help to celebrate their love,” he said, after receiving his civil celebrant registration last week. “My lived experience is that most people who become involved with a Jewish partner see it as an enriching and positive part of their relationship. We have to do away with the language of ‘marrying out’. If we can be genuinely welcoming and say ‘yes’ to them, then they are marrying in.

“My commitment is to help couples who want to create a Jewish home to get married in a way which includes the traditions and cultural elements of Jewish life that are meaningful to them."

Rabbi Lazarow said he would not conduct religious Jewish ceremonies for mixed couples nor perform interfaith ceremonies as a rabbi alongside clergy of different faiths.

“It is disingenuous to say they are marrying ‘k’dat moshe v’ yisrael’ (according to the law of Moses and Israel),” he said, referring to the traditional line, which signifies marriage between Jews.

'Pick 'n' mix' Jews

Intermarrying couples are not the only people are seeking a way to incorporate Jewish elements on their own terms. A number of civil celebrants, some Jewish, provide Jewish-style weddings to couples who prefer a less religious ceremony or want more autonomy in choosing how their wedding ceremony reflects their own values.

While religious ceremonies are now available in the progressive community to LGBTQ couples, they have been late coming and many people in non-traditional relationships as well as those who are cultural or secular Jews are looking for other options.

“Coming out of Covid, half our couples have a child because people were not going to put creating a family on hold because they couldn’t have a wedding,” Rabbi Lazarow said.

Unlike synagogues, which function on a membership model, Shtiebel is a social enterprise, where people can access a service without feeling an obligation to continued participation.

But Rabbi Lazarow expects that by giving people authentic Jewish experiences, he will increase the likelihood of a new couple’s continued engagement with Jewish life.

“When you show people how to create meaningful Jewish experiences for their marriage, they will want to replicate that at other times in their life. They will come back when their family expands or when they move into a new home, at times of joy or at times of sadness. They will punctuate their lives with Jewish moments.

“It will look different from the way Jewish life has looked in the past, but the Jewish life of the future is going to be different.”

Rabbi Lazarow said he can’t see the next generation being willing to “pay a tax to be Jewish” through synagogue membership fees. Nor does he expect much willingness to sign children up for seven years of Hebrew School.

But he sees real interest in Jewish education and experience on a more casual model. "It’s amazing how many people come to us and say, ‘Can you teach me Hebrew in six weeks?’ and we will ask ‘What kind of commitment have you got?’ and see what we can do.

“We are seeing it also with b’nei mitzvah. We have 16 families who have come to us in the first four months of this year and those b’nei mitzvah are going to look very different from one another. Some will be at the Shtiebel, some will be in their backyard, or in their parents’ home or in the back of a coffee shop.”

Rabbi Lazarow said while Shtiebel is the first initiative of its kind in Australia, nothing he is doing is new to the Jewish world. The Jewish Emergent Network, for example, comprises seven Jewish communities across the US operating outside of conventional institutional models and rethinking basic assumptions about ritual and spiritual practice.

Top photo: Rabbi Lazarow conducts a wedding (All photos supplied by Shtiebel)