 |
| CHABAD SHLIACH WALKING MUSLIM TO THE CHUPPAH |
Bklyn Jewish Woman Shocked to Learn that Husband is a Lebanese Muslim; Hid True Identity
The husband, who goes by the name Eliyah Hawila, according to his Twitter page has presented himself as a strictly observant Jew, speaking fluent Hebrew, and fraudulently claiming to have both Sephardic and Ashkenazic antecedents.
According to a report on Israel’s Channel 13, Hawila’s real name is Ali Hassan and sources close to the woman’s family have said that his passport indicates that he is from Lebanon.
The sources revealed that subsequent to marrying the man a few weeks ago, the woman became suspicious because his command of the Arabic language was too perfect. When the woman’s brothers went to his home to further investigate this matter, it was then that they discovered his Lebanese passport with the name Ali Hassan in it.
The case has been reported to the FBI and now fearing for her life, the woman is currently living in a safe house.
The woman in question who has chosen to remain anonymous for obvious reasons had known that her intended was from Lebanon when they were dating but because he appeared to be a devoutly Orthodox Jew in practice, she never doubted that he was halachically Jewish. Eliyah told the woman that he was estranged from his family and the story he offered her sounded quite convincing. The fact that he spoke Hebrew fluently also helped to buttress his spurious claims.
In addition, the woman learned that Eliyah was affiliated with Chabad-Lubavitch of Texas for approximately six to seven years.
The report also indicated that Eliyah learned Hebrew and seriously engaged in Torah learning during the time he spent in Texas with Chabad. After he has mastered his Hebrew language skills and projected the image of someone who was immersed in Torah did he marry this woman.
A senior member of the Chabad community in the US told the publication Be’Chadrei Chareidim that “Chabad did not convert this Shiite Lebanese imposter and did not perform the wedding or get involved in any way in the identity of the man.”
The member added: “This is an unfortunate case of a confused youth who struck up a virtual relationship with a member of the Syrian Jewish community who was mortified to discover after her marriage that he was not Jewish. A Chabad rabbi in Texas was asked by the officiating rabbi to walk the groom to the Chupah since he did not have any close relatives in the US.”
Information has also emerged that Eliyah had shown the woman a family tree of his antecedents, but soon thereafter it was revealed that his alleged genealogical background was replete with multiple inaccuracies. As shocking as it may sound, Eliyah also recorded on his family tree that one of his ancestors was notorious Jewish mobster, Meyer Lansky and provided names of other prominent Ashkenazic Jews. None of his findings could be verified by reliable sources.
If things weren’t bizarre enough, Eliyah also professed to be an employee for the National Security Agency (NSA) and displayed a supposed “letter” from his contemporaries at the NSA which stated that they congratulated him and his bride on their wedding.
When the wedding day arrived, Eliyah’s family were absent from the proceedings and he provided his bride and her family with cogent reasons as to why they chose not to attend.
Now that the FBI is involved in the case and seeking leads and information about Eliyah and his affiliations, the United States Department of Homeland Security has been briefed and is investigating if Eliyah is in the US illegally or whether he has a visa. Also brought in to this case is the Israeli Consulate General who has launched a probe of this man.
On the religious end, it has reported that in addition to the various governmental agencies who are looking into this matter, prominent Rabbonim and community organizations are investigating if in fact the man claiming to be a Jew has a Jewish mother or not.
The report indicated that the woman will remain in the safe house she is in until a confirmation is made on her husband’s true identity.
While residing in Texas and spending significant amounts of time with the Chabad chapter at Texas A&M University, the rabbi who heads the group issued the following statement earlier today, which appeared on the YWN web site.
The Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at Texas A&M is open to all Jewish faculty and students to explore Judaism.
In 2018 a student presenting himself as Eliyah Haliwa began visiting Chabad along with other local campus Jewish institutions (including serving as president at one of them). He would occasionally attend Shabbat meals at Chabad, and infrequently attended the services or Torah classes.
Last year he met a woman from N.Y. on a Jewish dating website.
He falsely presented himself to her as observant. When asked by the woman and her family, I informed them that his conduct did not reflect that of a fully observant Jew.
The fundamental responsibility of the officiating rabbi at a wedding, the mesader kiddushin, is to determine the Jewish status [birur hayahadut] of the couple and ensure that they are both Jewish, single and allowed to marry each other in accordance with Jewish law.
Accordingly, when Rabbi Ezra Zafrani, a respected Syrian rabbi in Lakewood, N.J., asked me if Eliyah was Jewish, I explicitly informed him that I did not know and that whoever was officiating would need to do a proper birur and would need to independently confirm his Jewish status.
The wedding itself was officiated by Rabbi Zafrani’s son, Rabbi David Zafrani. As my wife and I were in New York for other reasons, Rabbi David Zafrani, who was officiating in place of his father, and his wife, asked us to join the wedding. As the groom had no family attending, at the request of the coup le and the Zafranis, we walked him down the aisle and I signed the ketubah, which had been drafted by Rabbi Ezra Zafrani. We were not officiating and our involvement was predicated on the understanding that, as supervising rabbis, Ezra and David Zafrani had done their due diligence to confirm the groom’s Jewish status.
In the ensuing weeks, it has come to light that the bride was aware that Eliyah was using a false name, information he concealed from others, when she learned of his Muslim name. We were clearly misled about his identity. Our hearts go out to this woman, her family and everyone else deceived by this individual here in Texas and in New York and New Jersey.
Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff
14 comments:
Gee whaddya know? So Chabad is at the center of a fake Jew scandal!
Classic fodder for the old adage that YOU HEARD IT FIRST FROM UOJ!
https://crownheights.info/chabad-news/749892/beth-din-directors-to-assist-shluchim-with-birur-yahadus/
Better late than never for Chabadskers. The question is if Cunin & his homeboys will feif on their own beis din ....
Yes, Ezra Zafrani is SY, but he is a YTT boy!
Chalk this Arab imposter up as Margo's greatest 'contribution' to Klal Yisroel since Kolko's paws running rampant inside little boys hoizen!
How does the "senior" Chabadnik know Hawila is Shiite, not Sunni Palestinian or Druze or Bedouin or Maronite Christian?
Sounds like Chabad knows more they are letting on before they shift all the blame to the SYs.
"Margo gets results"
Feh!!!!!!!!!!!
No surrrprrrise vus UOJ blaming yeden rrreject oif yourrr's trrruly.
Anyvay, Ich gloib nisht de gantze mayseh
Allaham, you putz thief! Pay back all the money you scammed from the fressers & Wink n' Stare Synagogue before you run around like some kosher catering kingmaker in Dubai!
I'm with the Rosh Hayeshiva Rav Margulies on this one.
Just more tawdry tales when no one has actually proven the chosson is not Jewish. UOJ knows that a possible deep cover Arab sounds sensational so he is trying to drive eyeball traffic to the blog.
Yishmoelim are fort "Abrahamic", at least according to Trump's definition, if not al pi halacha, so we can assume that Hawila did teshuva already.
Plus he didn't wear a mask by the chassuna & Ich hob gehert he's not vaccinated, so he's a real swell guy in my book! We need him to do a workshop at the upcoming Convention. Maybe at the smorg table with the kibbe.
Hazeet!
Tatty, if the mamzerim from hazoyna Tamar with the 2 husbands can do teshuva after enough baksheesh, isn't it kal vachoimer even if Hawila is a goy? Zayer lomdish!
I don't give a crap as far as all these irrelevent details.
Bottom line: if I put Hawila on my Chabad telethon, will he pull in any money?
The more I think about this whole story, Shraga Feivel, the more I become a conspiracist: "Additionally, highly credible sources have confirmed to YWN that [Eliyah] Haliwa has admitted both to the NYPD and to his Jewish wife that he is not Jewish. Our sources say that he claims he is not an anti-Semite, and in fact married into the Jewish community because he wants to be Jewish himself. Why he didn't go through the regular process of geirus remains a mystery." This is the mystery only to YWN: "Haliwa was also asked why he did not contact local rabbis and pursue a proper conversion to Judaism, to which he replied that he tried to do so but it did not work out... the only person who had doubts about the groom before the wedding was a rabbi's wife who gave the bride lessons on Jewish matrimony laws... the woman tried several times to speak with rabbis about her concerns but her pleas fell on deaf ears."
Besides, how could he get officially married within the continental US without a valid Green Card or Passport? Surely, people saw his docs! How come his bride was so naive she happened to date an Arab for seven (!) months and didn't notice anything strange? התם אשה נישאת בודקת ונישאת הכא אשה מזנה בודקת ומזנה (Ketubot 14a). It looks like everyone concerned knew he was not Jewish and did not care much! Perhaps, she got a change of heart after the wedding and was looking for a way to get rid of him, so people suddenly recalled his Arabic lineage? For rabbis, anyhow, that's a win-win game: now they want to demand from everyone proofs of their Jewishness! And, of course, not every proof will be accepted, as Menachem Gelley once said to a Holocaust survivor with the last name Marks (Hi, Karl Marx!) and a valid mother's death certificate: "I don't think you're Jewish. And I don't think your mother was Jewish either."
What are your thoughts about this whole thing?
B'kitzur - All that know me, and in my writings, I have denounced Chabad as a cult, and while similar to halachick Judaism, is not Judaism!
They let anyone in their doors, in their schools, in their Houses WITHOUT ANY HERITAGE SEARCH!
So if a guy or gal is there for 7 years like this guy was, it is so easy to breach the "fences" and pass as a Jew!
Chabad is a cult --- they have been mithaher t'maim for years, and are never to be trusted on anything Jewish!
I may only add to your thoughtful post that Chabad active proselyting has become a metastatic cancer for the entire Judaism. Sadly, the Haliwa case proves this point: The bride and officiating rabbis are Sephardic, not Chabad. I personally believe NOBODY who is "made Jewish" through Chabad can marry a Jew: My matchmaking friend says they receive loads of resumes of "former" non-Jews who openly state they became "Jewish" because of "the Rebbe" and he-never-died legend. Rebbe is cool, he beats Jesus 10 to 1!
Yet another note: I know a person whose father (but not mother) is Jewish. The conversion was done by an Orthodox rabbi. But the individual was close to Chabad all the time. When Chabad Jesus kicked the bucket, this person was seen crying, "He did not die! Such a Gadol could not die! Moshiach never dies!" Recently I learned that it has been a number of years since this person is back in Church. So this time Jesus beat the Rebbe!!!
Post a Comment