Reform or Necessary Change ? The Attempt to Translate the Ketubah into Hebrew and the Reactions to it

The original language of the Jewish ketubah is Aramaic, a language not understood by the average Jew in recent generations. Therefore, in various Jewish communities, translations of the ketubah into the spoken language of community in question have been proposed. This article examines proposals made during the latter half of the twentieth century to translate the ketubah into Hebrew – and the fate of these proposals. The main focus of this article surrounds the most significant of these translation initiatives, which was undertaken by the Religious Kibbutz Movement (HaKibbutẓ HaDati) in the 1950s when members of the Kevuẓat Yavneh Kibbutz advocated that their new Hebrew ketubah be used as Israel’s formal ketubah, to be given to all Jewish couples entering into marriage in the country. They tried to attain the approval of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, but to their surprise, they were met with complete rejection. An examination of the justifications given by the Rabbinate for their decision to reject the translation initiative shows that their opposition was not based purely on halakhic considerations – rather, the changes made to the ketubah within Conservative Judaism at around the same time played a major role in determining the Rabbinate’s position. Expressing strong opposition to the new “Conservative ketubah”, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate stated that no change should be made to the text’s traditional form.