Surprise Masada wedding for couple on Mega Mission

Newlyweds Julie Morneau and Steve Lupovich are feted at their wedding on Masada.

Julie Morneau and Steve Lupovich had expected to get married quietly later this month in their rabbi’s study, with only a few relatives present.

Instead, the Montreal couple made history when they were wed atop Masada before hundreds of people, and they only knew less than 48 hours earlier that it was going to happen.

Morneau and Lupovich were among the 570 participants in Federation CJA’s Montreal Mega Mission to Israel, the largest organized trip of its kind in almost two decades.

Co-chairs Jonathan Wener and Gail Adelson-Marcovitz had their hearts set on holding a wedding on this site of an ancient fortification where 960 Jewish rebels committed mass suicide.

Wener and Adelson-Marcovitz had permission to do so – they just had to find the couple.

They correctly believed such a ceremony would be unforgettable for both the bride and groom, and everyone else. According to their information, a wedding has never been held on Masada.

When word got around that Morneau and Lupovich were planning to soon tie the knot, Wener approached them to move the date up – offering an all-expenses paid wedding. That was at the Friday night Shabbat dinner; the group was scheduled to visit Masada on the Sunday, May 18.

“We said, ‘whoa, whoa’, not so quick, we have everything arranged with our rabbi and family,” said Morneau, who was in Israel for the first time.

When they learned their Rabbi Adam Scheier of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim was on the mission, and would be honoured to the perform the ceremony on Masada – and again on the planned date of June 22, the couple relented.

“It was also so sudden, we really didn’t have time to think,” she said. “We just got caught up in the excitement.” It was a second marriage for both of them. Morneau converted to Judaism 20 years ago.

Lupovich was concerned about his mother not being there, but she gave her wholehearted blessing.

Morneau remembered she didn’t have a dress. A woman on their bus lent her a white sleeveless one, while Lupovich wore the white shirt and capris he had packed.

“We had no rings or any time to shop because it was Shabbat. The federation said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it’,” Morneau said. Ditto for the ketubah.

Morneau changed in a guard’s hut on Masada with the help of women from her bus. “We had been hiking and I was full of sunscreen,” she recalled. “I didn’t even have a mirror to get ready.”

Someone did her makeup, and a veil and bouquet of white roses were suddenly produced to complete her outfit. On her feet were flip flops.

Ten women from the mission served as bridesmaids, wearing shorts and T-shirts.

The chupah was improvised by hoisting a tallit atop four poles. The five other rabbis on the mission had a role in reciting the blessings.

All 600 or so people present were, in fact, spontaneous participants, not merely spectators, said Wener, “as if we were all on the bimah.”

The wedding took place following an awards presentation for 100 IDF junior officers that had put everyone in an emotional mood.

As the sun set, everyone descended on the snaking path down to the Judean Desert where tents were set up for a lavish torch-lit dinner. Israel Philharmonic musicians played.

“The whole thing was magical, surreal,” said Morneau.

Lupovich added: “It was very spiritual, almost as if it was blessed by God because everything aligned so perfectly.”

He found it an awesome sight to have hundreds of people in a close circle around them as they took their vows and then to see them winding down the hillside single file behind them.

“Many people said that not only was it the best wedding they ever attended, it was the most incredible thing they have ever seen,” he said.

However, he said, “one storekeeper said to me, ‘Why would you get married up there? It’s a place of tragedy.’ As Rabbi Schieir said, our wedding represented the circle of life. It showed the world that we [the Jewish people] survived.”

Wener feels the impromptu wedding was the icing on the cake, so to speak, of a successful trip that allowed a large contingent of Montrealers to bond as they experienced Israel.

“My sense is that it had an extraordinary galvanizing effect. As I told Julie and Steve, the gift you have given us is much greater than what we have given you.”