When Roni and Amit returned to Tel Aviv from a quiet courthouse wedding in Utah, they didn’t expect their marriage to be recognized in Israel—until a landmark court ruling changed everything. Now, same-sex couples like them can register their unions without leaving home, marking a quiet but powerful shift in a country where marriage has long been controlled by religious authorities.
In Israel, there is no civil marriage. Weddings must be approved by one of 15 state-recognized religious courts—Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or Druze—and none of them perform same-sex marriages. For years, LGBTQ couples who wanted legal recognition had to travel abroad, often to Canada or the United States, marry there, and then petition Israeli authorities to register their union. That changed in July 2022, when the Central District Court ruled that online civil marriages from Utah—where couples can now marry via Zoom—count as legal foreign marriages and must be recognized in Israel. In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the decision, closing a long-standing gap in equality.
The turning point came in 2006, when the High Court of Justice ruled 6–1 that same-sex marriages performed abroad must be registered in Israel. The case was brought by five Israeli couples married in Canada, who simply wanted the same rights as any other couple returning from a foreign wedding. "I am glad we won and got what we wanted to achieve in this petition, which was the basic right to be registered as married," one of the plaintiffs said at the time. That ruling opened the door, but the new Utah decision removes the burden of travel entirely.
Today, 78% of Israelis support legal recognition of same-sex unions, according to a 2019 poll by Hiddush, a religious freedom advocacy group. While full marriage equality is not yet law, the path is clearer than ever. Unofficial same-sex weddings are already common—23 couples had a mass ceremony in Tel Aviv in 2019, and the city’s mayor has officiated symbolic weddings since 2009. Even without religious approval, love finds a way.
The impact goes beyond paperwork. Legal recognition means access to spousal benefits, inheritance rights, and joint parenting—all protections once out of reach. And while religious authorities still hold tight to tradition, the courts are affirming that equality doesn’t require a blessing from the rabbinate. As Israel continues to evolve, one wedding at a time, the message is clear: love may not need permission, but it deserves protection.