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Why a county in Utah could play a role in Israel’s judicial crisis
(JTA) — Aaron Davidson has never been to Israel. He isn’t Jewish. He began serving in his position, Utah County clerk, just two months ago.
But the policies he oversees in his office in Provo, Utah, could have an impact more than 7,000 miles away — in the halls of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem.
That’s because Davidson is the top local official in a county that has, improbably, caused a seismic shift in the way marriages are legally recognized in the Jewish state. An ensuing court battle over the issue — which the Israeli government just lost — could provide added motivation for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pass controversial judicial reform that has already thrown the country into crisis.
Let’s take a step back and break this down.
How does marriage work in Israel?
Although a large chunk of Israeli Jews are secular, legal marriage in the country is controlled by the Chief Rabbinate, which is haredi Orthodox. In other words, within Israel, the only way for a Jew to get legally married is through an Orthodox ceremony.
That means same-sex marriage, interfaith marriage and non-Orthodox weddings performed in Israel are not recognized by the Israeli government. Also left in limbo are hundreds of thousands of largely Russian-speaking Israelis, who are not Jewish according to traditional Jewish law and are therefore unable to get married in Israel.
But there’s a loophole of sorts: Marriages performed and recognized abroad also get recognized in Israel. So for decades, non-Orthodox Israelis have found a workaround to those restrictions by taking a short flight to Cyprus to tie the knot, or traveling farther afield for their weddings. They then bring their marriage certificate to Israel complete with a stamp of authentication (called an apostille), and voila: legally married.
What does that have to do with Utah?
Starting in 2020, Utah County, Utah, began recognizing marriages performed entirely via videoconference, as long as the officiant or one of the parties was in the county. The county encompasses the area surrounding Provo, which is home to Brigham Young University and has a tech scene. Officials saw the new remote marriage system as a way to make it easier to “execute a permission slip from the government for two consenting adults to get married,” as former County Clerk Amelia Powers Gardner told The New York Times,
The innovation coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and beginning later that year, Israelis realized they could now get legally married in Utah without having to leave Israel — in fact, without having to leave their living rooms. Since 2020, Davidson estimates that more than 1,000 Israelis have taken advantage of the remote weddings. The fees for the remote wedding total a maximum of $155.
“The technology now opens a window of opportunity for thousands of Israeli couples every year to quickly, simply, cheaply gain civil marriage without leaving their homes,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, CEO of Hiddush, an Israeli organization that advocates for religious pluralism. “That in and of itself is a real breakthrough.”
(Israelis aren’t the only foreign nationals to use the county’s remote wedding option. It has also been a boon for gay couples from China.)
How have Israeli officials responded?
They are not happy about it. The acting Israeli interior minister, Michael Malchieli, is a member of the haredi Orthodox Shas party, and had refused to recognize the Utah marriage certificates, as did a predecessor of his, arguing that the marriages took place in Israel. A predecessor of his had also refused to recognize the certificates, but last year, a court ruled that the government must recognize the Utah marriages.
That decision made its way to Israel’s Supreme Court which, on Tuesday, ruled unanimously in favor of the married couples. Henceforth, their marriages will officially be seen as valid in Israel. The court made a similar decision in 2006 that compelled the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad.
“It is the duty of the [Israeli] registrar to refrain from making decisions regarding the validity or invalidity of the marriages themselves,” the court wrote in a summary of its decision on Tuesday. “When the registrar is presented with a proper public document, he must, as a rule, register it accordingly and refrain from making decisions regarding complicated legal matters.”
How is this related to Israel’s current crisis?
Israel is currently in the throes of a raucous national debate over legislation being pushed by Netanyahu’s government that would effectively sap the Supreme Court of much of its power. One bill would allow a simple majority of Israeli lawmakers to override court decisions, meaning they could negate decisions like the one handed down this week.
Proponents of the court reform say the legislation will allow Israeli law to more effectively represent the will of the country’s right-wing majority. Another Shas lawmaker, Moshe Arbel, cited Tuesday’s decision as a reason why the court reform is urgent.
“The high court, in another political step, proved once again how necessary the judicial reform is,” Arbel said, according to the Israeli publication Ynet. The decision, he said, works to “erase the Jewish identity of the state.”
How do officials in Utah feel?
Initially, it seemed Davidson, the county clerk, might do away with the virtual marriages. His campaign website said that “This online option devalues the union of a marriage and Utah County should not be the entity that facilitates the marginalization of marriage.”
But since taking office, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he has changed his mind. His concern, he said, was that abusers could take advantage of the virtual weddings to facilitate underage marriage and human trafficking. Now he realizes that that has not been an issue, and he is working on upgrading the county’s facial recognition software to forestall that possibility.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s any controversial marriages that want to happen in Israel, so I’m totally open in keeping that open and alive,” he said. “We’re trying to avoid any hint of child marriages or forced marriages or trafficking. We want to make sure that we know who it is that’s getting married before we perform the marriage online.”
Alex Shapiro, the executive director of the United Jewish Federation of Utah, is likewise happy about the Supreme Court decision. “[I] fully stand behind the decision to make civil marriage available to all citizens,” Shapiro told JTA. “I’m further pleased that the state of Utah can play a role in these unions without the challenge of couples needing to travel out of the county to be married.”
Davidson’s county, however, has few Jews and a politically conservative population. It is the home of the flagship school of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which opposes same-sex marriage.
Davidson, who is a member of the LDS church, said that he has heard a few objections from residents about facilitating same-sex marriages abroad. But he told JTA that he feels the virtual marriages uphold another core conservative tenet: limited government.
“Government restricts who can live where, in what country, and I kind of feel the same thing about marriage,” he said. “Why do I feel like I have the power to prevent a couple — whether same-sex or traditional — [from] being able to be happy with their life, and do what they want? That’s kind of been a guiding principle: Why should I have the power to control the happiness of somebody else?”
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The post Why a county in Utah could play a role in Israel’s judicial crisis appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israeli Christian Leader: Tucker Carlson ‘Doesn’t Want the Truth,’ Endangers Christians Elsewhere by Lying About Israel
Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Firebrand podcaster Tucker Carlson drew a barrage of heat from Israelis after claiming he was “detained and interrogated” during a brief stop at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday, with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett calling him “a chickens**t” and “a phony” and an Israeli Christian leader describing him as “an enemy of Israel” for lying about the country’s treatment of Christians.
Shadi Khalloul, founder of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association and a former Knesset candidate, accused the former Fox News host-turned-far-right conspiracy theorist of “destroying Christian-Jewish relations” all over the world and “endangering the persecuted Christian community in the Middle East” by portraying Israel as hostile to Christianity.
“The truth is exactly the opposite,” he said, describing Christians in Israel as enjoying freedom and equal opportunity.
In Khalloul’s telling, Carlson is choosing scenes and storylines that travel well online, then skipping the reporting that might complicate them.
“Tucker Carlson doesn’t want the truth. The truth doesn’t exist in his lexicon,” Khalloul told The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Khalloul invited Carlson to a tour of Christian communities and holy sites in Israel, including a meeting with his brother-in-law, the head of the Maronite Church of Israel, but received no response.
I invited @TuckerCarlson to take advantage of his upcoming visit to Israel and meet our thriving Christian community – to see with his own eyes the people and realities he speaks about so confidently and so often on his platform.
This letter was sent a week ago to every email… pic.twitter.com/lcBiecCtUx
— Shadi khalloul שאדי ח’לול (@shadikhalloul) February 17, 2026
“If he [Carlson] was really willing to help, he would come interview us, hear our views, our narrative,” Khalloul said, adding the podcaster would then be able to “expose the oppression of Christians in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, and under the Palestinian Authority by a radical Islamic propaganda agenda,” rather than “talking about me and my community as being persecuted by Israel.”
He pointed to anti-Christian violence in Syria, including a recent church bombing in Damascus, and to the arrest of Maronite official Moussa el-Hajj in Lebanon after he was arrested by Hezbollah operatives at the Lebanese border carrying money and medicine sent from Israel’s Christian community.
Christian communities all over the region are continuing “to shrink while we here are thriving and increasing in numbers and happily living in Israel,” Khalloul said.
Khalloul’s comments came after Carlson spent only a few hours in Israel on Wednesday for an interview with US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and chose not to leave the Ben Gurion Airport facility before flying out of the country.
Bennett described the polemical commentator’s visit as a staged drive-by meant to give him a basis for future anti-Israel commentary.
“Tucker Carlson is a chickens**t,” Bennett posted on the social media platform X.
Tucker Carlson is a chickenshit.
The guy who’s been spouting lies about Israel for the past two years,
landed today at Ben Gurion airport,
took a quick picture in the logistics zone,
tweeted it to pretend he’s actually IN Israel (so he can later claim that he’s a serious… https://t.co/ZWZ8aY7BAG— Naftali Bennett נפתלי בנט (@naftalibennett) February 18, 2026
Carlson, who has been “spouting lies about Israel for the past two years,” didn’t even step foot in the country, Bennett wrote, and instead posted a photo taken in the airport logistics zone to “pretend he’s actually IN Israel (so he can later claim that he’s a serious reporter who toured Israel).”
He “whined” and “made up a story that he’s being supposedly harassed by our security (didn’t happen),” he continued.
“Next time he talks about Israel as if he’s some expert, just remember this guy is a phony!” Bennett concluded.
Carlson’s version, carried by outlets including the New York Post and the Daily Mail, said airport security took passports and “hauled” his executive producer into a room and interrogated him about the interview Carlson had just recorded with Huckabee.
Huckabee pushed back publicly, writing on X: “EVERYONE who comes in/out of Israel (every country for that matter) has passports checked & routinely asked security questions.”
Israel’s Airports Authority also rejected Carlson’s account, saying he and his team were not “detained, delayed, or interrogated” and were only asked “a few routine questions” in a side room inside the VIP lounge “solely to protect their privacy.”
“No unusual incident occurred,” the authority said, adding that it “firmly rejects any other claims.”
Carlson’s airport detention story was “another lie” by “someone who is always inventing stories,” according to Khalloul.
Carlson’s own platform promoted the trip as a fact-finding mission. In a monologue titled “We’re headed to Israel. Here’s why,” his site said he was traveling to “get answers to questions that no one will answer.”
His show page also carried an episode billed as “Israel’s Purging of Christians From the Holy Land and the Plot to Keep Americans From Noticing,” part of a series focused on Christian treatment by the “US-funded Israeli government.”
Commentators on social media pointed out that Carlson’s posting “Greetings from Israel” from an airport logistics zone, then flying out, does not amount to visiting the country in any ordinary sense.
Carlson’s brief trip to Israel contrasts with his interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2024, when he spent multiple days in Russia praising the country on video and infamously marveling at the use of locks on shopping carts — a common feature in Europe.
The podcaster’s visit to Israel also differed from his trip to Doha in December, when he interviewed Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and revealed his plans to purchase a home in the country. Qatar has been a long-time backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its Palestinian offshoot Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Carlson has ramped up his anti-Israel content over the last year, according to a study released in December by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), which tracked the prominent far-right podcaster’s disproportionate emphasis on attacking the Jewish state in 2025.
In September, for example, the podcaster appeared to blame the Jewish people for the crucifixion of Jesus and suggest Israel was behind the assassination of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
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Israel’s High Court sides with egalitarian prayer advocates in long-running Western Wall dispute
(JTA) — Israel’s highest court has delivered a unanimous rebuke to state and municipal authorities over long-stalled plans to upgrade the Western Wall’s egalitarian prayer section, intensifying a dispute that has come to symbolize broader tensions over religious pluralism in Israel.
In a decision issued Thursday, an expanded seven-justice panel of the High Court of Justice ordered the national government and the Jerusalem Municipality to move forward with building permits needed for repairs and infrastructure improvements at the Ezrat Israel prayer platform, the area designated for mixed-gender and non-Orthodox worship south of the main Western Wall plaza.
The ruling imposes strict procedural deadlines aimed at ending what the justices described as years of exceptional delay following a 2016 deal to permit egalitarian prayer at the holy site. Acceding to pressure from haredi Orthodox politicians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze the deal the following year, triggering a legal petition by Judaism’s Reform and Masorti/Conservative movements, Women of the Wall and Israeli religious pluralism advocacy groups.
Today, the groups say, area remains difficult to access, lacks adequate facilities, and does not provide meaningful proximity to the Wall’s stones — conditions they view as discriminatory toward non-Orthodox worshippers.
“For nine years, the state and the municipality have been dragging their feet and refusing to promote an egalitarian, respectful, and accessible alternative in the Ezrat Israel,” Attorneys Ori Narov and Orly Erez-Likhovski, who represent the Reform Movement in Israel, one of the petitioners, said in a statement to Times of Israel. “Now, the court is ordering an end to the foot-dragging.”
The court did not revisit legal questions surrounding prayer rights at the site, emphasizing that the decision focused on the “practical implementation” of matters already litigated. Instead, the justices targeted bureaucratic obstacles that have repeatedly slowed or blocked construction, particularly disputes involving planning approvals and the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The court ruled that existing government approvals are still valid and that any remaining sign-off from the Antiquities Authority must be decided within 14 days, removing key grounds for further delays. After that, the state must file new building permit requests within 14 days. If officials don’t respond within 45 days, it will count as a rejection and the state must appeal. The state and city must also update the court within 90 days.
The decision arrives amid renewed friction at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site and a focal point of Israel’s long-running struggle over religious authority. It also comes just one day after Israeli police detained two leaders of Women of the Wall during the group’s monthly Rosh Chodesh prayer service marking a new Jewish month.
The activists were briefly held after conducting a Torah reading near the site. Women of the Wall, which campaigns for expanded women’s prayer rights, has clashed for years with authorities over practices permitted under non-Orthodox traditions but restricted in the gender-segregated main plaza.
Pluralism advocates hailed the court’s intervention as a significant victory, noting both the unanimity of the decision and the ideological diversity of the judicial panel.
“An expanded panel of the Supreme Court, including conservative jurists, has unanimously ruled that the Government of Israel and the Jerusalem Municipality must put an end to their foot dragging and get to work,” said World Zionist Organization Vice Chairman Yizhar Hess, a senior representative of the Masorti/Conservative movement, in a statement.
Hess accused authorities of maintaining an “endless, creative litany of excuses” to block repairs necessary to ensure direct access to the Wall’s stones at the egalitarian platform. “This is a victory for those who believe in Jewish pluralism in Israel and that every Jew from every stream should have the equal opportunity to pray according to their custom at our holiest site,” he said.
The post Israel’s High Court sides with egalitarian prayer advocates in long-running Western Wall dispute appeared first on The Forward.
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Australian Bar Shut Down for Displaying Posters of Netanyahu, Putin, Trump in Nazi-Like Uniforms
Adolf Hitler in Nuremberg in 1938. Photo: Imperial War Museums.
A live music bar and cafe in Australia was shut down by local police on Wednesday for displaying posters that depict world leaders and others, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, wearing Nazi-like uniforms.
The Dissent Cafe and Bar in Canberra Central said in a Facebook post that ACT Policing, the community policing arm of the Australian Federal Police, shut down the venue for two and a half hours on Wednesday night. Police said they were investigating a complaint about possible hate imagery relating to five posters in the venue’s window display. A scheduled performance at the bar and cafe was also canceled because of the shutdown.
ACT Policing said in a statement on Thursday that it declared the cafe a crime scene and officers would investigate whether there was a breach of new Commonwealth law about hate symbols. Police noted that they asked the venue’s owner to remove the posters and he refused.
“Officers attended the premises and had a discussion with the owner, with officers seeking to remove the posters as part of their investigation into the matter. The owner declined this request and so a crime scene was established,” read the police statement. “Five posters were subsequently seized and will be considered under recently enacted Commonwealth legislation regarding hate symbols.”
The Dissent Cafe and Bar had displayed in its front windows posters depicting Netanyahu, Trump, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, US Vice President JD Vance and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk in Nazi-like uniforms. The posters were created by the artist group Grow Up Art and underneath them were signs in the window that said “Sanction Israel” and “Stop Genocide.” Grow Up Art displayed the same images as part of a billboard poster campaign last summer and they are also sold on t-shirts. The artist group nicknamed the men in the posters collectively as “The Turd Reich,” a play on the Third Reich, the name for the Nazi dictatorship in Germany under Adolf Hitler’s rule.
Dissent Cafe and Bar has defended the artwork, saying it is “clearly and obviously parody art with a distinct anti fascist [sic] message.”
“In what is obviously harassment the ACT police have declared a crime scene at Dissent and tonight’s gig is unfortunately canceled,” Dissent Cafe and Bar wrote on Facebook when the closure happened on Wednesday.
The posters have since been placed back in the windows of the live music bar, but the images are now covered with the word “CENSORED” in red. ACT Policing said on Thursday they are still investigating the posters and are also “seeking legal advice on their legality.”
“ACT Policing remains committed to ensuring that alleged antisemitic, racist, and hate incidents are addressed promptly and thoroughly, and when possible criminality is identified, ACT Policing will not hesitate to take appropriate action,” police added.