Israeli Jewish-Arab Couple Petition High Court For Protection From Racist Orthodox Jewish Group As Police Require Couple To Hire 33 Security Guards To Protect Wedding Celebration
An Israeli Arab Muslim man and his wife, a former Jew who converted to Islam, are seeking protection from Israel’s High Court of Justice after a right-wing Orthodox racist organization announced plans to demonstrate at the couple’s private wedding celebration and police required that the couple hire 33 security guards to protect it.
Above: Head of Lehava Bentizion "Bentzi" Gopstein
Israeli Jewish-Arab Couple Petition High Court For Protection From Racist Orthodox Jewish Group As Police Require Couple To Hire 33 Security Guards To Protect Wedding Celebration
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
An Israeli Arab Muslim man and his wife, a former Jew who converted to Islam, are seeking protection from Israel’s High Court of Justice after a right-wing Orthodox racist organization announced plans to demonstrate at the couple’s private wedding celebration in Rishon L’Tzion Sunday night, Ha’aretz reported.
The wedding hall managers and the couple have all received death threats, and the couple was forced to hire 33 security guards to protect them and their wedding celebration after the right-wing openly racist neo-Kahanist group Lehava (which is made up predominately of Zionist Orthodox, haredi and Chabad Jews) publicly announced it would protest it.
On social media, Lehava asked members and supporters to come to the wedding hall Sunday night with megaphones and signs condemning the marriage.
“Come with placards and loudspeakers. In the name of God we will succeed! Share this with everyone! Sadly, this is really happening,” Lehava wrote in a Facebook posting.
In their petition to the High Court, the couple asks for Lehava’s planned protest to be stopped and asks that Lehava members be prevented from harassing them.
The couple already married in a Muslim ceremony. Sunday night’s event is a only a celebration gathering for friends and family.
“We’ve been together for five years, but we’ve never encountered such racism. I always knew there were racists, but as long as you’re not affected by it, until you feel it in your own body, you don’t know what it is. If it were someone from her family, I would understand, but these people aren’t related. Why do they care? Why are they getting involved? If they think they’ll get us to give up on each other, it won’t happen,” the husband told Ha’aretz.
His parents and his wife’s mother support the marriage. But her father does not and is boycotting the celebration.
The couple originally hired 14 security guards for the event, but were reportedly forced to increase that number to 33 by police order. The guards will cost them 15,000 shekels ($4,330).
“Why are they forcing me to spend out of my own pocket?If something happens, they’re supposed to take care of it, not me,” the husband reportedly said, adding that no matter what Lehava and police do or don’t do, the celebration will be held as planned.“We feel great, and that really gives us strength. They think they’ll break us, but we can’t be broken. The opposite is true – we’re getting stronger,” he said.
“The wedding will go on as planned – it will be great. I’m not worried, but it’s troubling that on this day, which everyone waits for their whole life, the happiest day of their life, I have to go to court. It’s sad that such things happen in this country.”
Lehava’s head Bentzion “Bentzi” Gopstein (sometimes spelled “Gupstein”) lashed out at the wedding and called the husband – a citizen of Israel who lives in Jaffa – an “enemy” of the Jewish people.
“We are still at war and she is marrying a member of the enemy,” Gopstein said with disgust.
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Jewish-Arab Intermarriage Prompts Right-Wing Protest, Threats.
In a few years, yad le'achim will need to save her and her six kids.
Btw, she's not a former jew. She's still a Jew. Her kids will be Jewish.
Posted by: Sheine Frau | August 16, 2014 at 10:51 PM
T ii S F
Yes she will always a YID if she ( or scotty boy) agrees or no.
Yad Leachem is working on this case for a while already.
Sadly it might take time but we must never give up hope.
Posted by: put a square into a hole | August 16, 2014 at 11:10 PM
What FM doesn't like to remember is that if the situation was reversed and this was happening in Jordan the woman would be forcibly converted to Islam under threat of death. It's only because they live in liberal Israel that this farce is going on.
Posted by: Garnel Ironheart | August 17, 2014 at 06:44 AM
Where in the Torah does it say if your mother is Jewish you are? It used to be if your father is Jewish you are too.
Posted by: A | August 17, 2014 at 07:37 AM
"..What FM doesn't like to remember is that if the situation was reversed and this was happening in Jordan the woman would be forcibly converted to Islam under threat of death...."
I see. So this makes this OK, that in an Arab country they'd do worse? Israel's already on a par with the neighboring Arab states in terms of unfreedom of marriage; all that's missing are the death threats - or are they missing?
And: "...she's still a Jew...". Hm. I see. Didn't Sudan use a somewhat similar argument in sentencing a woman to death because she followed her mother's Christian religion instead of her father's Islam? Good thing she was finally able to make it to a country where she was free to be herself: the US.
Didn't the Nazis pursue a policy that once a Jew always a Jew, despite conversion? Nice company you're putting yourself in with your pronouncements.
It's none of any of our business what she chose to do and the Israeli right-wing rednecks who're making her life hellish are no better than Klansmen. Make 'em some white hoods to go with their tzitzit and tallitim and their outfits will be complete.
Posted by: S M L | August 17, 2014 at 08:13 AM
Gargmel Ironheart. I do not understand how you derive this analogy. In our case here, the lady converted of her own free will and without pressure.
Do you suggest that if she was a Jordanian Jewess, that would have declined to convert hence forcing the unliberal Jordanian society to force her? Gee I am not sure this would happen in urban Jordan.
Posted by: Yosef ben Matitya | August 17, 2014 at 02:03 PM
SML 8:13 am
:-) the man is an idiot.
Posted by: Yosef ben Matitya | August 17, 2014 at 02:05 PM
YbM, the opposite situation would be a Muslim woman in a Muslim country meeting a Jewish man , converting to Judaism and having a Jewish wedding. You can be sure that the Jewish man, his wife and both their families would be murdered.
Posted by: Garnel Ironheart | August 17, 2014 at 03:59 PM