Israel's Olympic gold victory raises Jewish identity debate

JERUSALEM — Artem Dolgopyat fulfilled a lifelong dream when he won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. But back home in Israel, his hopes of trading gold wedding bands with his longtime girlfriend seem to be an impossible dream.

Her comments touched a raw nerve in this country, which has repeatedly struggled with balancing matters of religion and state since it was founded as a refuge for Jews 73 years ago. Israel does not have a system of civil marriage and Israeli law mandates that Jewish marriages must be conducted by a rabbi authorized by the Chief Rabbinate. Christian and Muslim couples must also get married within their faith.

Dolgopyat’s mother told the radio station that her son and his girlfriend have lived together for three years, “but they can’t marry. They need to go abroad, but they don’t let him go abroad because he always needs to do sports.”The Olympic champion, for his part, tried to downplay the controversy. “These are things I have in my heart, it’s not right to talk about this now,” he told reporters in Tokyo.

“It’s not that Dolgopyat is entitled to marry in Israel because of the rare sports accomplishment he made, rather because he is a citizen in a democratic country," Katya Kupchik, an activist with Israel Hofsheet wrote on the Hebrew news site Ynet. Israel Hofsheet advocates for civil marriages. Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, said Monday at a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid party that he “will fight in every way possible so that there will be civil marriage" in order for Dolgopyat and others to marry in Israel.

A million Russian migrated to Israel under the “free the Jews from the Soviets” scam but are not considered Jews under Israeli’s law.

How will the anti Semitic media outlets cover this CNN : “Jew gymnast bad”

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