There is no such thing as civil marriage in Israel

John Lannon (Irish Examiner, November 5 ) writes erroneously that Israeli “civil law does not permit marriages between Jews and non-Jews (including Palestinians)”.

This is because there is no civil marriage in Israel — each community be it Jewish, Muslim, Druze, Christian, Samaritan or Armenian conducts its own marriages — including that of converts to their respective religion — according to their own traditions.

However there are many cases of “mixed” families in Israel (Arabs with Jews, Christians with Muslims or Jews, etc) as Israel’s population of 8,000,000 comprises a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic mixed society