Yale’s Rabbi James Ponet officiates at Clinton wedding
By Judie Jacobson

That a rabbi would be sharing clerical duties with a Methodist minister at the much talked about wedding of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton and her fiancé, Marc Mezvinsky, was one of the few facts widely reported in advance of the July 31 fete. But after the ‘I do’s’ were uttered, Connecticut’s Jewish community was surprised to learn that the rabbi standing before the couple under a chuppah laced with branches and white flowers was none other than Connecticut’s own Rabbi James Ponet, director of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University in New Haven.

Ponet and Rev. William Shilady, a Methodist minister, were pressed into service to perform the interfaith wedding ceremony held on an estate in Rhinebeck N.Y. for Clinton, who is Methodist, and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, who is Jewish. Mezvinsky wore a kippah and a talit under the chuppah.
“It was a deep, beautiful wedding; Elana [Ponet] and I were privileged to be there,” Ponet told the Yale Daily News. “Marc and Chelsea are a very serious, thoughtful and committed couple.”
Asked why he was chosen to officiate, Ponet told the News he was referred to the couple by “a number of people.”
“After meeting them I felt honored to help them create and implement a ceremony that gave expression to their deepest convictions,” he noted.
Among the Jewish traditions at the ceremony were the recitation of the seven blessings by family and friends, and the signing of a ketubah. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that the wedding was held on Saturday night before the end of Shabbat.
Ponet, has been the Jewish chaplain at Yale since 1981. He was ordained by Hebrew Union College, the seminary of the Reform movement, in 1973.

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