Just how mock is a mock wedding?

Dr. Hirsch Jakob Zimmels printed various decrees and responsa issued by the London Beth Din during the tenure of Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell. These accounts from the Beth Din's ledger were printed in the Jubilee Volume for Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie. Here is one that is particularly interesting, not so much for the situation as for the peculariarly Englishness of it.



Here's a somewhat free translation of an event which occurred in 1823 - I apologize for the salty language, but if it is written frankly in the record then I can write it frankly here. Zimmels was more circumspect than I:

Testimony recorded on Sunday 17 Iyar 5583 (1823) regarding the marriage of Yitzchak Ikey ben Hirsch to Esther bat Lazar. Esther said that he married her, witnessed by Binyamin who is called Johnny ben Avraham, and he gave her a ring with the intent of consecration. A little later he took the ring from her, promising to give her a different ring. However, Ikey denies it occurred at all, and says that he never gave her anything. What he says happened is that there were many young ladies present and he said to all of them in a joking way a term of consecration, in English, "You bitches, you all belong to me."

The witness Johnny was examined and the substance of his testimony was that this event occurred a week after Passover, which marked the seven years he had worked in the household of a Mr. Lee alongside Ikey. He didn't remember anything other than hearing him say "Harei at mekudeshet li, you bitch[es] belong to me." Johnny didn't recall anything beyond what Ikey testified, or if he said it in the singular (you bitch) or plural (you bitches). He also didn't remember if he saw him give her a ring or something else, it was "something which isn't doesn't register as important" since he didn't realize he'd be called to testify.

7 Heshvan 5523 (1823). The Chief Rabbi, head of the Beth Din, arranged for a get for the matter of the lad Yitzhak Isaac ben Zvi Hirsch, and the young lady Rahel Rachel bat Eliezer Lazar also called Blind Lazar. The scribe was Menachem ben Rabbi Meshulem Ha-levi. The witnesses of the granting of the get were Zerach ben Aharon Ha-Levi and R. Ezriel ben R. David Ha-levi. The judges were R. Wolf Galen and myself [i.e., R. Shlomo Zalman, another dayan on the Bet Din].

Whatever occurred, we can see that this mock 'wedding' resulted in an actual get being written. Zimmels already calls attention in the notes to the discrepancy of names. This is not so problematic if we assume that Rahel was her Hebrew name, and Rachel her formal or legal name. Esther was probably her nickname, for who knows what reason. But it clearly talking about the same people and is the very next entry in the pinkas.

Many pages of this pinkas are discussed, and a few facsimiles even printed, in a very good book called From One End of the Earth to the Other: the London Bet Din, 1805-1855, and the Jewish Convicts Transported to Australia" by Jeremy I. Pfeffer. Unfortunately this page was not reproduced, but you can see an idea of what the ledger looks like:



Interestingly, about 70 years later Israel Zangwill would publish his novel Children of the Ghetto. One event which occurs in this book is a mock wedding and the subsequent writing of a get. This becomes a tragedy, because the girl is unable to marry the man she really loves - he is a kohen. This particular plot device was not received well by certain self-conscious Jews who denied that such a thing is possible, or, allowed that even if it was that Zangwill showed disloyalty by presenting Judaism in its worse light.

This became a matter of public debate when a play based on the book was bought to the stage in New York (some also had a problem with reciting prayers in the play, or reciting it with God's name). There was even a critical editorial in the New York Times (Oct. 18, 1899) which you can read here.

In the Jewish press, scholars duked it out. One rabbi maintained that Zangwill's presentation of halacha was correct and it was "a triumph of Jewish law," which was grabbed as an advertisement blurb for the play on New York streetcars! Others, such as the great Talmudist Lewis N. Dembitz and others argued that such a mock wedding is not valid according to Jewish law. Rabbi Frederick de Sola Mendes warned that "laymen" i.e. Zangwill, should not involve themselves in halachic discussion, and that the play was "a triumph of ignorance of Jewish law," if it was a triumph. George Alexander Kohut and Gotthard Deutsch both produced responsa (from Chacham Zvi and others) concerning such mock weddings and required divorces. Little did they know - and one wonders if somehow Zangwill had heard - that lying in an old pinkas in London was the record of an actual case like it.