Custom Ketubah
by Miriam Karp

Jewish and Nondenominational marriage contracts
for Weddings, Commitment Ceremonies
and Anniversaries

Now Available: 2 New Prints!

About Ketubah Ketubah, (variously spelled ketuba, kettubah, katuba, katubah, and in the plural, ketubot, ketubbot and ketubahs) literally means "it is written." The ketubah, or Jewish marriage contract, is a legal document originally formulated to protect a Jewish bride from financial hardship in the event of divorce or her husband's death. Because it specifies the groom's financial obligations to the bride, the ketubah made divorce a costly option thereby strengthening the Jewish family. At about 2000 years of age, the ketubah is certainly among the first documents conferring legal status and financial rights to women. Some people are surprised to learn that the traditional ketuba is not a romantic document about the love between man and woman or the establishment of a Jewish home and future family. What the katubah does include is the date and place of the marriage, the names of the bride and groom (and their father's names) and the bridal price (two hundred silver zuzim). It then enumerates the trousseau brought to the marriage by the woman which the groom agrees to match as the additional sum. The groom agrees that "all my property, real and personal, even the shirt from my back, shall be mortgaged to secure the payment of this marriage contract, of the trousseau, and the addition made to it, during my lifetime and after my death…". The signatures of two non-related witnesses validate the Jewish marriage contract. The traditional ketubah formula, written in Aramaic, not Hebrew, is still used today (and is the only one legally recognized in Israel). But there are also many other ketubah texts. The Conservative movement makes the marriage contact more mutual and contains a clause whereby the groom agrees to obtain a get (divorce decree) so that the bride may remarry in a Jewish wedding ceremony. There are also numerous egalitarian ketubah texts used by the Reform movement, as well as Reconstructionist, and Sephardic ketubah texts, kettubah texts for interfaith marriages, commitment ceremonies and commemorative anniversary ketubot. Throughout the history of the katuba, Jewish artists have been influenced by their particular time and the artistic traditions of the country in which they worked which makes the ketuba one of the most visually vibrant aspects of Jewish wedding customs. My custom ketubbot, which are designed for each unique couple, draw on that incredibly rich kettubah history as well as on contemporary art and design. A ketubah is often the first piece of art that a couple buys; a symbol of the life they will live together and an heirloom to pass down to generations to come. Please view the images in the ketubah gallery to see some of the possibilities available to you.

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