First Jewish gay marriage held in Latin America

The first Jewish same-sex wedding ceremony in Latin America is celebrated at a Buenos Aires synagogue.

Victoria Escobar, 36, a convert to Judaism, and Romina Charur, 35, are married on Sunday evening at NCI Emanu El Temple in the Argentine capital. Some 300 guests attend the ceremony, which is officiated by Rabbi Karina Finkielstein.

Escobar and Charur entered the synagogue together and the rabbi led them to the huppah. Less than one hour later, Finkelstein read in Hebrew from the ketubah, or marriage contract, that consecrated the wedding.

The couple were married in a civil ceremony in 2014.

Argentina was the first country in Latin America to approve same-sex marriages, which have been legal since July 2010.

The assembly of NCI last month unanimously approved a request to hold the same-sex wedding, calling it “another major step in the full recognition of all religious rights for all members of the community,” NCI Emanuel and the LGBT organization Judios Argentinos Gay (Jewish Argentinian Gays), or JAG, said in a statement, which said the wedding would be the first same-sex Jewish religious marriage in Argentina and Latin America.

The decision was made under the guidelines of the 2006 Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, which approved same-sex marriages for the movement.

NCI-Emanu El belongs to both the Conservative and Reform movements.

— JTA