Rishon Letzion – Israeli police on Sunday blocked more than 200 far-right Israeli protesters from rushing guests at a wedding of a Jewish woman and Muslim man as they shouted “death to the Arabs” in a sign of tensions stoked by the Gaza war.
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Several dozen police, including members of the force’s most elite units, formed human chains to keep the protesters from the wedding hall’s gates and chased after many who defied them. Four protesters were arrested, and there were no injuries.
A lawyer for the couple, Maral Malka, 23, and Mahmoud Mansour, 26, both from the Jaffa section of Tel Aviv, had unsuccessfully sought a court order to bar the protest. He obtained backing for police to keep protesters 200 metres (yards) from the wedding hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.
The protest highlighted a rise in tensions between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel in the past two months amid a monthlong Gaza war, the kidnap and slaying of three Israeli teens in June followed by a revenge choking and torching to death of a Palestinian teen in the Jerusalem area.
A group called Lehava, which organized the wedding demonstration, has harassed Jewish-Arab couples in the past, often citing religious grounds for their objections to intermarriage. But they have rarely protested at the site of a wedding.
The groom told Israel’s Channel 2 TV the protesters failed to derail the wedding or dampen its spirit. “We will dance and be merry until the sun comes up. We favor coexistence,” he said.
‘DEATH TO THE ARABS’ THREATS CHANTED
Protesters, many of them young men wearing black shirts, denounced Malka, who was born Jewish and converted to Islam before the wedding, as a “traitor against the Jewish state,” and shouted epithets of hatred toward Arabs including “death to the Arabs.” They sang a song that urges, “May your village burn down.”
A few dozen left-wing Israelis held a counter-protest nearby holding flowers, balloons and a sign that read: “Love conquers all.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, sworn in last month to succeed Shimon Peres, criticized the protest as a “cause for outrage and concern” in a message on his Facebook page.
“Such expressions undermine the basis of our coexistence here, in Israel, a country that is both Jewish and democratic,” Rivlin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud bloc, said.
Lehava spokesman and former lawmaker Michael Ben-Ari denounced Jews intermarrying with non-Jews of any denomination as “worse than what Hitler did,” alluding to the murder of 6 million Jews across Europe in World War Two.
A surprise wedding guest was Israel’s health minister, Yael German, a centrist in Netanyahu’s government. She told reporters as she headed inside that she saw the wedding and the protest against it as “an expression of democracy.”
Arab citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel’s majority Jewish population, and the overwhelming majority of Arabs are Muslims. Rabbinical authorities who oversee most Jewish nuptials in Israel object to intermarriage fearing it will diminish the ranks of the Jewish people.
Many Israeli couples who marry out of their faith do so abroad.
Malka’s father, Yoram Malka, said on Israeli television he objected to the wedding, calling it “a very sad event.” He said he was angry that his daughter had converted to Islam. Of his now son-in-law, he said, “My problem with him is that he is an Arab.”
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How long do you think it will take before the kallah calls Yad L’Achim to save her and her children from the Arab gehinom her life will become?
Very sad. Speechless
Where are the protest when a Jewish men marry a non–Jewish woman?
There’s my tzedakah at work. Yad L’achim, brace yourself.
#1 anonymous the ONLY response to you – If you are SO tolerant- I WISH your children supply you with such NACHAS! Converting to Islam – her parents had to sit Shiva over her. There isn’t a greater heartbreak imaginable. And marrying the enemy- he’ll teach her what ABUSE means. She’ll be lucky to survive.
Israel is supposed to be the “Jewish” state and the holy land. How can it be legal in Israel to have an inter-marriage? How can it be legal for someone to convert to another religion? What is more important-for Israel to be seen as a democracy or for Israel to be seen as the holy land?
While it is sad from our perspective.
Every person has the ability to make their own choices without being harassed.
If we can’t respect that ever individual has freedom of choice then what value do our choices have??
NEBACH! Such a tragedy-even if she wasn’t frum we have to feel for her as a fellow yid ruining her life and causing such anguish to her family. It’s not a matter of freedom-we would need behind the scene people to get out of such a horrible situation-hopefully. Yad Lachim will
The Arabs are sweet talkers before the wedding but after the wedding they beat their wives into submission (see Koran, Women 3:34)
Plus if she dressed that way in the Arab areas she would have her neck slit after she had been gang raped!
Yes. From a secular democratic (and islamic) point-of-view there’s nothing wrong with this wedding.
But the best Brachah (blessing) we can wish the Bride is that she should have NO “Sholom-Bayis”, they should separate and divorce as soon as possible, and she should see the errors of her ways and repent.
And until then she should not have children.
Now THAT’S an appropriate blessing!
Let’s hope the “Shidduch” dissolves before they have kids.
And then this “Bride” will end up preaching to other young foolish Jewish girls not to marry interfaith.
Good for everybody.
They had their party and the protesters protested. Democracy In action.
Intermarriages a scourge in the United States and there’s absolutely no reason why rabbis and others should be against it in Israel. In fact in Israel it takes on even a greater significance. But, people would have to understand the real situation on the ground.
Unfortunately most of the readers of this blog don’t have the necessary sophistication.
Sad and tragic but anger and protests are not going to change anyone. She will have to answer to HKB”H for her actions, not to us.
HKB”H yearns for her teshuvah as much as he yearns for ours.
I hope this article is not true. Yes it is terrible that she married a non-jew, but not because he is a palestinian. Any non-jew would be a problem. Such violent Zionist protest, which do not express the Jewish pov are a chillul hashem and counter-productive. If they would have arranged a real protest with the correct points being made, it could have been a kidush hashem. Sadly a tragedy was compounded by irresponsible Zionists.
Dina and Shechem!!!!
She has a tattoo?
In any case, trying to tell young people who they can marry is a fool’s errand. You try to raise them in a certain way, but in the end, they are their own minds and will do as they like.
When a muslim marries a non-muslim (or even a muslim from a different sect) in some Islamic country, and there are violent demonstrations against the couple, all the usual posters here claim this shows the “intolerant” nature of Islam. However, all the ehrliche yidden here who support the violent protests against this woman’s free decision to marry an arab forget the tolerance when it comes to EY. What vile hypocrisy.