Last update - 00:00 24/10/2006
Despite ban, ex-Chief Rabbi Lau still taking fees for weddings
By Orit Shohat, Haaretz Correspondent
Former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who currently serves as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, continues to take payment for conducting weddings, even though by law, rabbis employed by the state are not allowed to accept payment for such work, which is considered part of their jobs.
As Tel Aviv chief rabbi, Lau receives a full-time salary from the Tel Aviv Religious Council. Nevertheless, Haaretz has learned that Lau was paid $500 for a wedding he conducted in Tel Aviv last month: he conducts
about 10 weddings a month.
Lau's associates admitted that he continues to take payment for weddings, even though he announced he had ceased this practice, and even though he
knows such payments violate a Justice Ministry directive. They said he donates "the lion's share" of payments to charity, but that does not make the payments legal.
Lau is planning to run for state president, although he is waiting until the incumbent, President Moshe Katsav, resigns before formally announcing his candidacy. Until recently, he was Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
preferred candidate for the post.
Nine years ago, Lau announced he had stopped taking payment for conducting weddings, as he had been informed that it was illegal. The announcement was in response to an investigative report by Haaretz that was published in March 1997. The Haaretz investigation found that
for years, including while he was serving as chief rabbi and head of the Rabbinical Court of Appeals, Lau received from $500 to $2,500 per wedding. At that time, he was conducting around 20 weddings a month, and
sometimes even more than one wedding per night.
Lau said at the time that he never forced anyone to pay him, and that such payments were a time-honored tradition. However, then-attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein rejected this argument, saying that rabbis employed by the state were civil servants in every respect, and therefore, were not entitled to any payment beyond their salaries for services that constitute part of their jobs.
In August 1998, Rubinstein published a binding directive to this effect that remains in force to this day. In it, he explained that couples pay the rabbinate a fee to get married, and this fee is supposed to cover the cost of all services provided by the rabbinate, including a rabbi to officiate at the wedding.
The fact that the rabbi donates the money to charity does nothing to legitimize this practice, Rubinstein continued; If a couple wishes to donate money to charity, they should do so directly, rather than through
the officiating rabbi.
Chairman of the Tel Aviv Religious Council, Eldad Mizrahi, said that as far as he knows, the prohibition on accepting payment applies only to religious court judges (dayanim), and Lau no longer serves as one. However, Rubinstein's directive which was accepted by the chief rabbis
at that time explicitly applies even to rabbis who are not dayanim.
At the time, Rubinstein decided not to investigate Lau over the payments, because he believed that the Justice Ministry had previously failed to make the legal situation sufficiently clear. Today, however, no such
excuse would apply.
"The rabbi himself does not like receiving money," an associate of Lau said. "His close aides organize the weddings for him, and they are the ones in contact with the public. They intend to help him, but they end up
harming him."
A Tel Aviv municipality spokesman said that the city is not involved with the matter, since weddings are the religious council's province.