By, Simon Rocker
2 min read
BySimon Rocker, Simon Rocker
For 15 years Natalie Grazin and Samantha Cohen have been stalwarts of the New North London Synagogue, the country's largest Masorti congregation.
They helped to found the egalitarian minyan Assif. They have a boy and a girl who attend Jewish primary school.
The couple, who met at Limmud in 1997, formally pledged their commitment to each other in 2005 in a brit ahavah, a covenant of love.
While it resembled a wedding with rituals such as the chupah and breaking the glass, it was a private affair.
But now such couples will be able to enjoy a public ceremony after Masorti leaders last week agreed that their rabbis could officiate at same-sex unions.
The new ceremonies will be known as shutafut, partnership. or brit ahavim or ahavot, covenant of lovers, to differentiate them from kiddushin, the traditional Jewish marriage rite.
Couples will be able to register as married under English law. Ms Grazin, 41, a management consultant, said: "For the considerable number of Masorti people who are LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender], that gives them the opportunity, as is available to everybody else, to have the event in their own shul with their own rabbi.
"There are many younger people who have been waiting for it in order to find out whether the movement sees them as people of equal value."
Ms Cohen, an optometrist, 42, said: "When we did our commitment ceremony, we were very struck that we had this wonderful relationship with the community. But the rabbi who we adored, and still do, was not able to participate in any ceremony, and that really struck us as sad. It would have meant a lot for us if he could have run the ceremony for us."
"A good few" Masorti members among the 40 or so families are involved with Imahot V'avot, Mummies and Daddies, a new group which caters for same-sex parents and their children, she said.
"There are lots of families who want to stay in the Jewish community, some of whom will have grown up in an Orthodox community and will come to Masorti because it is traditional Judaism that appeals to them but that welcomes LGBT people," she said.
Individual Masorti communities are free to decide whether to hold such ceremonies. Matt Plen, the movement's chief executive, said that since the announcement, there was "almost unanimously positive feedback".
But some older members of the community remain opposed to, or doubtful about, the change.
New London Synagogue member Peter Bartfield believed that it would be "disastrous" for Masorti. "There are many people who won't be happy and I would hate to see a breakaway."
Elkan Pressman, who belongs to New North London, was " surprised that our rabbis regard their proposals as falling within the halachah. Any hopes that we might have had that decisions of our Bet Din might be treated with respect by Orthodox authorities in the foreseeable future have now sadly disappeared.
"But I respect our rabbis' need
to respond to the call of their consciences."
Meanwhile, same-sex couples who previously had a same-sex civil commitment ceremony will be able to marry from December.