A senior New York Police Department official has formally confirmed that man reported to be a Lebanese Muslim masquerading as a Haredi Jewish man, who married a Jewish woman in a Haredi wedding ceremony in New York some two weeks ago, is in fact a Muslim from Lebanon.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Speaking to The Yeshiva World website, NYPD Community Affairs Deputy Inspector Richie Taylor, an observant Jew, explained that the incident comprised "no credible threat to the Jewish community and there are no ties to this situation and terrorism."
Taylor's remarks sought to calm the community after rumors that the groom in question had ties to Hezbollah.
According to the original reports, the man – who called himself Eliyahu Haliwa, has admitted to both the NYPD and his wife that he is not Jewish. He says that he is not an anti-Semite and married a Jewish woman because he wanted to be Jewish. However, he had previous claimed that he worked for the National Security Agency and visited Israel, both of which are untrue.
Haliwa's story began some years ago, when he arrived at the University of Texas and tried to take part in the activity of Jewish groups on campus, including Chabad and Hillel. According to Lazarov, who manages the Chabad House at the university, Haliwa never studied in any Chabad-affiliated yeshiva and neither spoke nor read Hebrew.
After the start of the COVID pandemic, Haliwa met a girl from the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn via a dating site, where he presented himself as a religious Jew.
"When the relationship grew more serious, the girl reached out to me to check him out, and we – my wife and I, based on what we saw the few times he arrived for Shabbat dinner or to pray – that his lifestyle was not that of a religious Jew, to say the least," Lazarov said.
A few days ago, the man's new bride discovered – how remains unclear – that there were grounds to suspect that her husband wasn't Jewish at all, but rather a Shiite Muslim. According to various unconfirmed reports, the woman has sought shelter outside the couple's home.
Meanwhile, the local Jewish community continues to flagellate itself over the incident. After Rabbi Yosef Lazarov, who accompanied Haliwa to his chuppah, clarified that he had never looked into whether the groom was Jewish or not and said he was not involved in the engagement ceremony, Rabbi Ezra Zafrani, who prepared the couple's ketubah and sent his son, Rabbi David Zafrani, to conduct the engagement and marriage ceremonies, issued a public apology and accepted responsibility.
"I was completely misled by this man and others about his Judaism," Zafrani Sr. said in remarks published overnight on the site Haredim 10.
Zafrani admitted his mistake and said he had been wrong to allow the couple to marry without confirming the man's true identity ahead of time. "I'm amazed at myself for allowing this to happen, and I have no one else to blame. I have no words to describe the pain that this has caused our rabbis and our community. No apology can heal the wounds, but it must be made."
The rabbi has apologized to the bride's family and to the rabbis, and promised to be more careful in the future.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
