Jay, who spent more than two years in yeshivah at the inclusive Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, said they first broached the possibility with one of his tutors. “We said we’d be interested in doing something halachically coherent because it was really important to me and that it would look very traditional which was important to Michael.”
Jay, 34, a dual Austrian-British national who runs a science consulting business, and Michael, 37, a chartered accountant from Manchester, first met via the dating app Hinge in late 2022. They are planning to change their surnames to Kissinger.
The shutafut model is, Jay explained, “discussed in the Mishnah and there is a formulation recorded in the Machzor Vitri, an11th-century prayer book. They were never used for two men to live together, it was usually used for business transactions and property deals and merchandise.”
But some of the language of the original shtar could be “repurposed” for its new usage.
Michael Sluckis and Jay Schlesinger[Missing Credit]
While shutafut ceremonies have been held under the Masorti movement here since 2016, there is no record of one conducted in the UK by an Orthodox-identifying rabbi.
“There could have been an Orthodox rabbi who did it very privately, very discreetly for other couples before,” he said. “We just wouldn’t know. We think it probably the first, but we can't be 100 per cent sure.”
The officiating rabbi was Rahel Berkovits, from Pardes, who was ordained by two of the Orthodox rabbis in Israel, Daniel Sperber and Herzl Hefter who have pushed the envelope on religious leadership for women (though neither women rabbis nor shutafut ceremonies are recognised by the Orthodox establishment in the UK or elsewhere).
"So we retained what could be retained, knowing not everything could because Rahel was very clear on some of the red lines that can’t be crossed,” Jay said.
“For instance we didn’t do sheva berachot under the chupah as Rav Rahel said it was halachically problematic.”
Nor could the traditional formula when the groom puts the ring on the bride be recited – so instead the two men pledged their fidelity to one another through a shvua, a halachic declaration.
“When couples get married conventionally, I don’t think many think about the details of the ceremony or the choreography They take whatever the rabbi offers them,” he said. “We had to think of everything – whether we had one tisch [the groom’s pre-wedding table] or two tischen… we did one tisch. There was no bedecken because there was no bride. We replaced the bedecken by putting a tallit on one another.
“We did do the breaking of the glass because there are no halachic issues with that – but we didn’t do the circling although the circling is mostly minhag rather than halachah.”
Jay had “really wanted a synagogue wedding, we realised that’s not going to happen so the number two choice would be a listed building”.
The grade 1-listed town hall in Rochdale outside Manchester, which was renovated a couple of years ago, proved a “stunning” venue.
There was the odd obstacle to overcome: they had to find an alternative beth din to supervise the kosher caterer as the first declined because of the nature of the event.
Although such ceremonies are yet to be embraced by mainstream Orthodoxy, they point to growing acceptance of LGBT people within the traditional world.
“In parts of Jerusalem, there is this openness to the LGBT community especially the religious ones because rabbis generally want Jews to be engaged with Judaism – they want to come and daven and do mitzvot and learn,” Jay said. “And if they are gay, we can’t just pass them along because they’ll move to Tel Aviv and start eating chazer [pork] and no-one’s a winner.”
There was one other notable novelty: the first dance was to Elvis’s Can’t Help Falling in Love in Yiddish, translated by Sarah Biskowitz, a fellow student of Jay’s at Pardes.
