Posted on 12/14/2004 10:22:29 AM PST by Alouette
Thousands of Jewish Israeli women marry Arabs, unwittingly entering a trap of torture. Mayaan Jaffe has spoken to some of the women who were fortunate to escape.
By Mayaan Jaffe
“I always thought we could be happy again, but I now know that I am never going back to my abusive Arab husband … I had eight years of physical and emotional torture, I bore him three children, none of whom he is grateful for. Now I am ready to start over.” So says Sarah [all names have been changed], with an empowering grin on her face.
Then she tilts her chin, closes her eyes: “But it is really hard. There is always some reason to not feel good enough. Memories seep through my veins. They may be empty, but sometimes they are very powerful.”
A sigh; Sarah is ready to tell me her story, to explain how she ended up in Lev L’Achim’s rehabilitation center for battered women, to clarify how she lost so many years of her life to an Arab man who never really loved her…
November 1997: Sarah is a rebellious woman in her early twenties. Born into a traditional family and a graduate of the National-Religious school system, she says she needed a break. Enter Yasser, a dashing young Arab man with a decent occupation. He gives her all the love in the world. He whispers sweet nothings in her ear and slowly convinces her she doesn’t need her family or friends. They move in together. She converts to Islam. He becomes her whole world. They get married.
March 1998: Sarah becomes pregnant. Yasser locks her in their apartment. He comes home in fits of rage. “I own you,” he tells her. He yells. He hits. He pounces on her swelling stomach. The pain is great. Sarah fears for the baby’s life and asks for a divorce. Yasser agrees only on condition that they continue living together. Sarah doesn’t know what else to do, so she agrees.
“When our son was born in December 1998, Yasser didn’t even come to the birth. I had to drive myself to the hospital. He forbade me from having anyone with me. I gave birth in the hospital, but on my own. Screaming in pain, I had no one to turn to,” Sarah sobs. “When the baby was born and Yasser came to see him, he took one look at our son and he said, ‘He is not mine.’ I never felt so devastated in all my life.”
March 1999: Sarah realizes she must escape. She picks the lock of their apartment – her prison - and runs to her sister’s, begging for help. Her sister takes her in. Their son is given a brit milah [circumcision], and Sarah prepares to start a new life.
June 1999: Yasser finds out where Sarah is staying. He comes to her, reminding her of the times they had together, promising to change, offering to be the father her son doesn’t have. Sarah agrees to re-marry Yasser.
March 2000: Sarah gives birth to a daughter. Four months later she is pregnant again. When their third child is born, a boy, the abuse begins again at full force.
“He would hit me, throw heavy objects at me, bruise me all over,” Sarah whispers. “But the verbal abuse was the worst of all. I can’t even begin to tell you the repulsive words he said to me.”
Sarah perseveres. When she left her sister’s home the year before, she was told she could never return. She now has three kids, no money, and no self-confidence.
June 2001: Sarah is on her way home from the grocery store when she hears thunderous wails coming from her apartment. She recognizes her son’s screams and darts for the door. She enters and finds her two-and-a-half year old boy black and blue, bleeding. His father had beaten him to a pulp. Sarah goes crazy. She threatens to call the police, but she is too terrified.
Sarah shuts down emotionally. Her husband continues with his usual tirades against her, and against the children, but she has no strength to fight back. She cries. She prays.
For three more years Sarah lives in fear. She and her children are regularly beaten and Sarah each day understands more why she should leave this life behind.
Sarah begins secretly to reconnect to her Judaism. She practices holiday rituals when Yasser is away and reconnects privately with some former Jewish friends and with her sister. Sarah begins to plot escape. She knows she will need her sister’s help, but her sister takes more than a year to determine that Sarah is serious about her decision.
October 2004: Sarah's fateful phone call to her sister. Hearing Sarah’s voice, and recognizing that Sarah truly wants to rescue her children from this Arab prison, her sister immediately calls Lev L’Achim. Representatives of the organization arrive three hours later, when Yasser is out with his friends, to rescue Sarah and her family.
They come to the hostel.
Sarah is empowered. Her children change their names: Ali is Evyatar, Nura is Moriah and Abdul becomes Aviad. Sarah is trying to obtain a divorce through the Muslim court. Her husband refuses her; he wants the children to remain Muslim. She refuses to agree to his ultimatums. Lev L’Achim is handling the paper work.
Yasser tries to call, but is told by the hostel director that their relationship is over. He can’t get through to her by phone. He writes her letters, but she just tears them up, often without even reading them.
Sarah says the fight to leave her Arab husband is almost as difficult as it was to stay with him. She is constantly battling positive memories, as well as his current provocations, which sometimes reach her via mutual friends. Inside she knows what is right, and she believes she can succeed in breaking away.
“I have so much strength,” Sarah says. “I am so thankful to G-d that I have this chance. I will get a divorce and I will raise my children as Jews. If he won’t give me one, I will disappear. I will change my name and Yasser will never find me. He can’t have these children – he doesn’t deserve them. I am the one who will take care of them, I always have. If he loved and respected us, he wouldn’t have been violent.”
Sad to say, but you might just as well say this about the Hell's Angels too. Women are property in their lifestyle.
Throughout the 1990's, and up until the outbreak of the Palestinian extermination "uprising" the Israeli leftist media and assorted feminist shills were conducting a "witch hunt" for abusive husbands in the Orthodox Jewish community. There was a flood of articles and many works of fiction (novels, movies) demonizing Orthodox Jewish men, even though the rate of abuse in this community is only a tiny fraction of what it is among secular Jews and non-Jews.
Here in the U.S. the liberal elite like to demonize the evangelical community, but discourage American women from marrying Muslims and you're "racist" and "Islamophobic."
I pinged him.
Any woman who marries a Moslem man, knowing how Moslems treat women, deserves what she gets.
Unwittingly ?
I think not.
Thanks, good, I hope he can save her.
For a while ...
I hope so too. If not, it will not be for lack of understanding or effort.
I found it extremely difficult to muster up any sympathy whatsoever after reading this line.
***I am glad that she's away from that scum now, but I offer her no sympathy for what she's endured. She went back to it by choice.***
TO ANY MAN READING THIS:
If you EVER have any doubts about whether a girl needs a father who loves and shows his approval of her, this story should convince you. This woman had NO sense of self worth, or she would never have gone back to that beastly husband.
If my husband had ever hit me, even once, even lightly, he would have been without a wife and children. With every year I become more aware of how much my wonderful father's love and approval has affected my life, and made me more complete. I was very lucky.
Yeah.
Bump
File this story under the tab "Stupidity its Own Reward."
I too went to college in the 1980's -- The University of Wisconsin. Sadly a large number of Jewish women dated arab men. All of them were abused, but they rarely said anything about this, they were too ashamed to admit this.
One time the parents of a Jewish girl who were visiting the dorm I lived in (she lived in a different dorm room) asked me to date their daughter (I am Jewish). At the time I was dating a woman of Christian background. They asked me why would I date a Christian girl and not their Jewish daughter. I said I am dating your daughter!
They kept pressing the issue, so I informed that it was my right to date a woman of Christian heritage, they went on to condemn me for this – since they pressed the issue in front of their daughter I said “The woman I am dating does not sleep with animals. I do not date those who sleep with animals.” They said their daughter was so sweet and cute and condemned for dating a non-Jew. I was getting angry at them for attacking the woman I dated. They pressed the issue – so I said “Your daughter SLEEPS with arab muslims, I do not date women who have sex with arab muslims, I WOULD NEVER EVER DATE A MUSLIM woman, I Would NEVER EVER Date a woman that had sex with a muslim, just I would never have sex with my dog!”
That ended the issue!
Why would any man Christian, Jewish or Atheist ever date a woman who had sex with a muslim.
Once, after seeing a news piece on domestic violence, I asked my wife what she'd do if some guy ever hit her in anger. Her reply was wonderfully direct, "I'd stand over his bleeding body and reload."
Sounds like you had a stressful time there. Hell, nobody ever wanted me to date their daughters when I was in college. I think that was the time of my life where I was God's Chosen Punishment on everyone else.
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