The Knesset Absorption Committee was presented with alarming facts, speaking of some 1,000 annual complaints from Jewish women who became entangled in romances with Arab males, now trapped in a life as an Islamic wife and mother in an Arab community.
It was explained to the committee members that at times, the women and young girls are abducted by Arabs to their villages, against their will. MK Nissim Ze’ev spoke of a family from Betar Illit whose daughter was held captive in a nearby Arab village, Hussan, and the local Arab villagers were brazen enough to publicize they captured a female settler and converted her to Islam.
Committee Chairman MK Danny Danon called for action before it is too late.
Also present at the special session was Elena Tzanani of Yad L’Achim, who detailed the horrors faced by the organization on a regular basis, seeking to extricate women from captivity in Islamic communities.
According to Rabbi Aryeh Ler, who is active in Israel’s Ethiopian Jewish community, 60 women from his tzibur are currently living in the Bedouin municipality of Rahat. He added that in Beersheva, there are 200 women who are in social contact with males from the Bedouin community.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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8 Responses
Your headline spoke of “Hareidi” women. The article spoke about Ethiopians and of female soldiers. I was unaware of a large number of Ethiopian Hareidim, or of Hareidim women serving in the Israeli army. Given who runs Israeli, any non-Arab being held in an Arab village merely has to walk up to a soldier or police, slap him and thereby get arrested, and she has effectively “escaped” since she knows her background will be checked once she is in custofy.
Perhaps the “issue” involves people who are marginal to the Torah community who make some very bad choices (which isn’t to say they need assistance, but only that the headline and to a lesser extent the article, or verging on “yellow journalism”).
#1 – though I agree with your questioning of the headline, this problem is NOT isolated to those who are marginal to the Torah community. These Arabs, y”sh, consider it a coup to get a Jewish girl, and will do whatever it takes to get a girl to speak to him in order to eventually kidnap her and bring her to his village. This includes lying about their background and using wily, cunning ways to get frum girls who do not speak to boys to pay attention to them and engage in conversations. A couple of years ago, a Bais Yakov girl from Bnai Brak was targeted, as she walked past a construction site every day to school with a group of friends. One day she was alone, and y”sh, a worker approached her to “warn her” of the dangers of being near the site. This breach was r”l, the beginning; she disappeared a short time later.
When these incidents were just beginning to surface, my mother-in-law, told me a horrific story. She is from Iraq, and understands Arab culture. She was on her way to the makolet in Ramat Eshkol and saw an ashkenzic girl from a family she knew being engaged in “innocent” conversation by a boy. This girl had no idea that the boy was an Arab, she was just answering his “innocent” questions… Bisiyata Dishmaya, my mother-in-law (who ka”h, fears no one) walked over to the Arab and started to yell at him in Arabic to go far away from this girl and never try that antic again. She then turned to this very confused girl, and explained to her what just happened, and told her not to answer innocent questions (clearly she could not distinguish the impending danger, better not to speak to anyone). The girl was terrified, and cried, of course she and her family were grateful.
Point of the story? ARABS ARE NOT TO BE UNDERESTIMATED. They will stop at nothing to destroy our people.
agree with akuperma. Very poor journalism if the title is disconnected from the content of the article.
I think the incidence of charadi women being romantically involved with Arabs is almost nill, but were is the story about 4 rockets fired at western Negev that happened yesterday?
“any non-Arab being held in an Arab village merely has to walk up to a soldier or police, slap him and thereby get arrested, and she has effectively “escaped” since she knows her background will be checked once she is in custody.”
Sir, I’m sorry , but you obviously haven’t the faintest clue of what is happening here .
#1 (akuperma):
The article doesn’t mention soldiers once, but I guess when you read anything dealing with Israel through colored glasses it is easy to write such an uninformed reply.
These girls are generally held prisoner in the house, and even if they aren’t just slapping a soldier (if it at all results in an arrest) won’t bring the kids that they had with their abductor.
Sadly there are 2 groups of girls most vulnerable according to most reports from Yad L’Achim and other organizations working on this:
– secular girls that “get started with” while going out/being students at mixed institutions
– charedi girls getting picked up by the “attentive” school-bus driver/repairman/cleaner/local workman etc. it’s usually an Arab who works in their vacinity every day, he’ll openly listen to popular Charedi music to show how close they are, compliment and slowly work on the girl until she “falls in love”
Don’t be offended by the headline it is a warning for everyone to be careful and warn our daughters.
Girls are targeted from all walks of life and some are more susceptible than others.
Betar Illit is a Charadi Yeshuv in the Gush near Efrat.
The stories are horrendous. There are far too many frum girls who are told to be kind and do chesed and are not sufficiently warned about the dangers of innocently interacting with these predators. There was also an incident in Monsey where a frum girl became enchanted by a goy in the local frum supermarket, and ended up with him.