August 26, 2007	Sunday	Sha’aban 12, 1428

SAINTE AFFRIQUE (France), Aug 25: A French rabbi who married a Protestant pastor in what is possibly a unique inter-faith union has been fired from his post, his wife announced on Saturday.

Jonathan Levy, 53, has been ordered to cease his religious functions in the cities of Montpellier and Strasbourg following the July wedding, said Catherine Stoerkel, a 35-year-old pastor in the south-eastern town of Sainte Affrique.

The Federation of Liberal Judaism in France “simply fired my husband,” she said.

She said that her own church had accepted the marriage and she was continuing her duties.

Stoerkel also noted that while there had been previous marriages in the world between Jews and Protestants, “our case is different – we’re office-holders in these faiths”. The two met in Montpellier in 2006, when Stoerkel discovered she was of Jewish descent while investigating her origins.—AFP