* Israeli couple granted country's first same-sex divorce
* Same-sex marriages not recognised under Israeli law
JERUSALEM, Dec 4 (Reuters) - An Israeli court has awarded
the country's first divorce to a gay couple, which experts
called an ironic milestone since same-sex marriages cannot be
legally conducted in the Jewish state.
A decision this week by a family court in the Tel Aviv area
"determined that the marriage should be ended" between former
Israeli lawmaker Uzi Even, 72, and his partner of 23 years, Amit
Kama, 52, their lawyer, Judith Meisels, said on Tuesday.
Legal experts see the ruling as a precedent in the realm of
gay rights in a country where conservative family traditions are
strong and religious courts oversee ceremonies like marriages,
divorces and burials.
While Israel's Interior Ministry still has the power to try
and veto the decision, it would likely have to go court in order
to do so, Meisels said.
A 2006 high court decision forced the same ministry, headed
by an ultra-Orthodox cabinet member, to recognise same sex
marriages performed abroad and ordered the government to list a
gay couple wed in Canada as married.
Same sex marriages are performed in Israel, but they have no
formal legal status.
"The irony is that while this is the beginning of a civil
revolution, it's based on divorce rather than marriage," newly
divorced Kama, a senior lecturer in communications in the Emek
Yizrael College, told Reuters.
He and Even, both Israelis, married in Toronto in 2004, not
long after Canada legalised same-sex marriage. They separated
last year, Kama said.
It took months to finalise a divorce as they could not meet
Canada's residency requirements to have their marriage dissolved
there. At the same time in Israel, rabbinical courts in charge
of overseeing such proceedings threw out the case, Kama said.
By winning a ruling from a civil court, Kama and Even may
have also set a precedent for Israeli heterosexual couples, who
until now have had to have rabbis steeped in ancient ritual
handle their divorces, legal experts say.
"This is the first time in Israeli history a couple of Jews
are obtaining a divorce issued by an authority other than a
rabbinical court, and I think there is significant potential
here for straight couples" to do so as well, said Zvi Triger,
deputy dean of the Haim Striks law school near Tel Aviv.
(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Michael Roddy)
