Thousands of rabbis were on strike in Israel Wednesday, threatening to lock cemetery gates and refusing to ritually slaughter livestock to protest months of salary delays and government moves to curb their authority.
Unable to completely forgo religiously mandated duties, Orthodox rabbis who work for the government said they would conduct weddings, but on street corners and in parking lots rather than in elaborate banquet halls.
The government has not paid salaries to 3,000 rabbis and employees of municipal rabbinates and religious councils for more than six months, said Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger. A smaller number have gone without pay or pensions for more than a year.
Metzger said there were concerns the withheld earnings were part of an official plot to undermine their authority over the personal lives of Israelis.
The threats of parking lot weddings weren't carried out Wednesday. Hundreds of guests thronged at least one wedding hall, and a rabbi carried out the ceremony under a traditional canopy inside.
Only Orthodox rabbis are allowed to conduct Jewish wedding ceremonies, because the Orthodox rabbinate is the only recognized Jewish authority in Israel, controlling marriages, divorces, conversions and other aspects of personal lives.
Reform and Conservative streams have no standing, and though dominant abroad, they have relatively few followers in Israel.
While Orthodox Jewish political parties held pivotal positions in previous Israeli governments, their places have been taken by Shinui, a secularist party whose main goal is to clip the wings of the Orthodox establishment.
There was evidence the lack of money for salaries was part of Israel's overall economic malaise. Many cities have been unable to pay their workers, and services have been reduced countrywide because of budget cuts.
The office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a statement that the government was making "honest efforts" to try to find a solution for religious councils' debts.
The unpaid wages add up to more than $65 million, said Rabbi Moshe Rauchberger of Israel's chief rabbinical council. He said if no deal is reached in a week, many rabbis plan to launch a hunger strike.
"We have not sinned. We work all the time. There is no reason for it," said the exasperated rabbi, baffled at the reasons for the pay delay.
Rabbi Simcha Hacohen Kook, chief rabbi of the central Israeli city of Rehovot, said it was part of a new government position to whittle away at the power of religious authorities. "They want to change the whole character of the Jewish nation," Kook said.
In protest, rabbinates stopped issuing marriage documents on Monday, and rabbis threatened parking lot and street corner weddings.
However, the owner of one wedding hall in Jerusalem said the strike would likely lose some of its punch because couples would probably slip the rabbis extra cash to hold ceremonies indoors.
At one Jerusalem wedding Wednesday night, Rabbi Chaim Gazit said it was difficult to strike and disrupt rites that come from the Bible.
"I care about the ceremony and the people getting married first," Gazit said, before marrying a Jerusalem taxi driver and a secretary in a ceremony capped by a blinding swirl of disco lights and dance music.
Hours for funeral services have also been limited, and cemetery gates will stay locked except for burials, rabbis said.
No animals can be slaughtered for meat because rabbinate officials who oversee kosher conditions at slaughterhouses walked off the job.
Inspectors who make sure restaurants adhere to strict religious dietary laws will continue to patrol, but new eateries cannot apply for kosher certificates.
Also, some rabbis were shutting doors in front of those seeking counseling.
Circumcisions and coming of age ceremonies — bar mitzvahs for boys and bat mitzvahs for girls — were not affected because they don't require official rabbinic supervision.
Metzger said he did not know how long the strike would last. He said the government has given few reasons for the delayed payment of wages and has offered only empty promises to resume salaries.
"We are in such a bad situation that some rabbis come to my office with tears in their eyes, saying, 'I have nothing to give my children. My refrigerator is empty. All these years I had helped the poor and now I'm among them,'" Metzger said.
He accused government officials of attacking the country's religious authorities.
"There are some people against the religious, who feel we don't need the religious," he said.
Metzger is one of two chief rabbis in Israel. He represents Jews of European descent. Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar leads Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry. Amar told Army Radio on Wednesday the government was seeking to destroy services from religious officials in Israel.