The Other Side of the Story

By now you surely must have heard about the story in New York of a Lebanese Muslim posing as a Jew having learned in a Chabad yeshiva and even marrying a frum woman in New York until his identity was discovered.

Behadrei brings a report from Zeev Brenner on Talkline (I have not heard the interview yet) who got the other side of the story! Brenner interviewed Eliyahu Hawil (obviously not his real first name).

Hawil says that hisfather was very connected to Islam, but his mother was not, and while he grew up being taught to hate Israel and Jews, he never connected to Islam and doesnt consider himself a Muslim. Hawil says his father still lives in Lebanon (though he has US citizenship) but his mother lives in Texas. Hawil has no Palestinian friends and has no connection to Islam, never goes to the mosque (and has never been, which might be hard to believe).  he says he was curious about Judaism and did some research and connected to it when he found the Tanach. He says he learned Hebrew by himself while in Lebanon.

He liked what he discovered about Judaism and wanted to connect to it. He went to Chabad and told them his mother is Jewish (even though she is not) and that's basically the story - from there one thing led to another...

He was acting like a Jew while in Lebanon and was getting threats. When he went to the USA, he first went to a Reform temple but they rejected him, as he was from Lebanon, so after that he decided to just tell people that he is Jewish. Once that was his story, he basically just kept going and couldn't back down, even when he was dating and made up more stories to explain away other things, like why his family was not connected, why he was alone, etc....

Poor kid. I guess from here, if he is really serious and telling the truth now, he'll probably try to go through a conversion, which should not be too difficult. I wonder if his lies until now will prevent him from converting, sort of as a knas or punishment. .

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