Jewish Right-wing activists from the anti-miscegenation group Lehava protest outside the wedding ceremony of a Muslim man and a Jewish woman in Rishon LeZion
With chants of “Death to Arabs” and “Mohammed is dead” in the background, the 30-something couple spoke earnestly, their faces worried. “As far as I’m concerned,” said the woman, an economist who didn’t want to be named, “I came to a funeral. The father is in mourning. I’m here to support the family in their pain with our presence.”
They have come to a grimy parking lot outside a tacky mall in Rishon LeZion, deep in the center of Israel, to protest the wedding of an Arab Muslim Israeli and an Israeli woman born Jewish, who converted to Islam. The wedding is in a hall about 200 meters away from the protest, as per a court order. About 200 protestors have gathered in the thick, hot air. The couple talking to me come from Rishon; they say they are secular.
They have come to a grimy parking lot outside a tacky mall in Rishon LeZion, deep in the center of Israel, to protest the wedding of an Arab Muslim Israeli and an Israeli woman born Jewish, who converted to Islam. The wedding is in a hall about 200 meters away from the protest, as per a court order. About 200 protestors have gathered in the thick, hot air. The couple talking to me come from Rishon; they say they are secular.
The band of youth who have been chanting close by start jumping, in formation, screaming: “There are no classes in Gaza/because there are no kids in Gaza!” – referring to the hundreds of children killed by Israeli forces during Operation Protective Edge – and “Jews have souls; Arabs are sons of bitches!” The secular husband gestures towards them. “I don’t agree with that ‘death to Arab’ stuff. It’s too bad this has become a platform for extremism.” He bounces a giggling, pigtailed toddler. “We are here to give the bride’s family hope, to remind them: it’s reversible.”
Jewish extremists chanted racist slogans as they attempted to raid the wedding of a Muslim Arab and a Jewish convert to Islam in Tel Aviv
Many of the protestors are wrapped in Israeli flags, draped over black T-shirts of “Lehava: The Jewish honor guard.” Lehava is a self-anointed “anti-assimilation” movement. The previous week, the group posted Mahmoud and Morel’s wedding invitation on the Internet, exhorting followers to come demonstrate. Mahmoud and Morel sought a court injunction.
Lehava’s theme of “anti-assimilation” appears to be a sanitized label to win legitimacy for an organization known mainly for harassing people. One woman at the counter-protest has a partner from Darfur. She says she has been shoved and hit by Lehava members. When they threatened her with further violence on the Internet, she says she went to the police, who told her there was nothing they could do – she should hire a lawyer.
Those protesting the wedding are concerned about more than assimilation. Some say that the bride herself doesn’t realize her awful mistake. “Somewhere deep in her heart, she knows it is wrong,” says Simcha, a 51-year-old religious woman who immigrated from France in 1981. “You can’t convert to Islam – you’re born a Jew, you have a Jewish soul.” Others tell me that Jewish women have been manipulated, brainwashed or otherwise trapped into converting to be with Muslim men. Simcha says that Muslim men beat women and drag them by the hair.
Another resounding theme is that the bride’s children, Jewish according to Jewish law, will be raised Arab. That makes them potential terrorists. One sign says: “You wanted a grandchild? You got a Shahid!” (martyr). The wife in an older religious couple from Kochav Yair, a well-heeled suburb in central Israel says, “The children could all turn out to be Hamas! They might be Jews killing Jews, and they wouldn’t even know it.”
What about the idea that a woman has a right to choose, that it’s the couple’s private business? Tiferet, the 15-year-old from Beit Shemesh carrying a sign, is shy but firm. “Just because someone jumps off a roof doesn’t mean I’ll let her. She’s not only hurting herself. She’s hurting all of Am Yisrael.”
And there at the heart of the summer circus lies the core: a struggle to define, re-define, own or appropriate Judaism in the state of Israel today. Uriel, the formerly ultra-orthodox man, explains that Judaism is fundamentally racist, while a fellow pro-wedding protester chants “Judaism is not racism.” A Lehava activist shouts at cars looking for parking. “Whoever goes to the wedding is destroying Am Yisrael!” while others insist that assimilation is more dangerous than physical persecution.
--------------------------------------
Jewish anti-miscegenation groups distribute racist, sexist flyers
Yad L’Achim poster: ‘In a relationship with citizen belonging to an ethnic minority?’
I have recently reported on a few instances in which two Jewish anti-miscegenation groups - Lehava and Yad L’Achim – have been actively operating to thwart contact between Jews and Arabs. Lehava, which runs a hotline encouraging callers to inform on Jewish-Arab couples, was reportedly behind a campaign to pressure Israel’s National Service Administration to stop allowing Israeli Jewish females to work night shifts in hospitals – presumably to make it more difficult for them to socialize with the Palestinian citizens of Israel with whom they work.
Yad L’Achim – whose mission is to fight “assimilation” (read: miscegenation) and whose slogan is, “We don’t give up on a single Jew” - claims to collect the identification cards of Jewish women seen socializing with Palestinians.
Both these organizations have posters circulating on the streets and in social media that are racist, sexist and offensive. Here is a flyer by Lehava spotted in Jerusalem that says in Hebrew and Arabic: “Don’t even dare to think about a Jewish woman!”
‘Don’t even dare to think about a Jewish woman!’ -Lehava poster in Jerusalem
Yad L’Achim has a poster going around social media that reads: “In a relationship with citizen belonging to an ethnic minority?” And below that: “You know it’s not it, but having fun in the meantime? Don’t waste your time! You are wasting the most beautiful years. Your life is not a game! Turn to Yad L’Achim’s 24-hour hotline now.”
The barcode in this flyer takes you to a video produced by Yad L’Achim which shows a Jewish Israeli woman telling other women about the dangers of dating an “Arab” – how they are obsessive, and take over your life, and she implies that all Arab men abuse Jewish women verbally and physically. The last message of the video is: “You deserve one of us.”
