How can a Protestant who is married and lives in Israel get divorced here?
By: דיאנה שאלתיאל•Published on: 09 May, 2022Firstly, the Protestant faith is not recognised in Israel in that it has no court system dealing with the personal law of its members. Accordingly, if two protestants who married overseas live in Israel and wish to divorce here there is no possibility of doing this according to any religious Christian court. They can, however, gain a civil divorce. They will have to go through the Dissolution of Marriage procedure . As the Protestant faith is not recognised in Israel this process will be relatively quick as there will be no need to obtain any opinions from religious courts. Jurisdiction to dissolve the marriage will lie with the family court which will then deal with ending the marriage.
If a Protestant is married to a non-Protestant and wishes to divorce the process is also a civil one, by Dissolution of Marriage. Again, there will be no need to gain an opinion from the Protestant side as the faith is not recognised here and no-one has jurisdiction to give such an opinion. However, if the other spouse is a member of a recognised religious faith there will be a need to gain an opinion regarding jurisdiction over the matter. In the case of a ‘mixed’ religious matter the Deputy President of the family court has to decide which court has jurisdiction to dissolve the matter – but this again most probably lie with the family court.