Australian rabbi will conduct interfaith weddings

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.