Tel Aviv – Celebrity Jewish-Arab Wedding Stirs Mixed Feelings In Israel

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    Lucy Aharish and Tsahi Halevi at their wedding party in Hadera, Israel October 11, 2018.Tel Aviv – A surprise celebrity wedding bridging Israel’s Jewish-Muslim divide drew mixed public reaction on Thursday in a country where such inter-marriage is extremely rare.

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    Wednesday’s nuptials of Tsahi Halevi, an Arabic-fluent Jewish actor, and Lucy Aharish, a Muslim anchor on a top Hebrew news show, followed a four-year romance that, friends said, they had kept secret to avoid falling foul of cultural sensitivities.

    “We Are Signing a Peace Accord,” the couple joked on their wedding invitation, quoted by the Israel Hayom newspaper.

    The decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict has often fed tensions between Israel’s majority Jews and the 20 percent Arab minority. According to the most recent national marriage data available, for 2015, just 23 out of some 58,000 weddings were between Arabs and Jews.

    Israel’s best-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth wished bride and groom “Mabrouk” – Arabic for “congratulations” – on its front page, writing the word in Hebrew transliteration.

    But the marriage was rued by Arye Deri, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who serves as Israeli interior minister, a role that oversees the country’s population registry.

    “It’s their own private affair. But, as a Jew, I have to tell you that I’m against such things because we must preserve the Jewish people,” Deri said in an interview on Israel’s Army Radio. “(Their) children will grow up, go to school and later want to get married, and then they’ll face difficult problems.”

    Both bride and groom have had public brushes with geopolitics.

    Halevi is a former undercover commando in the Palestinian territories – a role he re-enacted for the hit Netflix series “Fauda”. Aharish had complained, in media interviews, of suffering discrimination in Israel as well as pressure from her family over the prospect of her marrying outside of Islam.


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    15 Comments
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    thegreatone
    thegreatone
    5 years ago

    Nothing to be surprised.
    Zionism had led millions of Jews into becoming full fledged Goyim. Desecrating shabbos,fressing shrimp,ham and everything Treif.

    The dream of Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Chaim Bialik, Ben-Gurion and the rest of the atheists is fully fulfilled.

    5 years ago

    I’ve seen Lucy Aharish on television, and I met her and spoke to her, while she was on a tour of the USA in 2016. I asked her about harassment which she’s received, regarding reporting the news objectively. She stated that she has received more harassment from Arabs (especially Arab men), than Israeli Jews. In fact, her family was the object of a terrorist attack, when she was a child, when some lunatic threw a firebomb at her car, while her Father was driving. Incidentally, the Rabbi who criticized the marriage and made remarks about their children, doesn’t have to worry, as she can’t have children. Incidentally, about two years ago, Lucy Aharish blasted the leaders of the Arabs countries, whom have done nothing to stop the bloodshed in Syria. She received a lot of hate mail and threats from Arabs. I wish the best to both Lucy and her husband.

    stamnamefortrump
    Noble Member
    stamnamefortrump
    5 years ago

    Yuck. We should beat the goy and send them all outside our land if they don’t keep noahide laws

    lazy-boy
    Active Member
    lazy-boy
    5 years ago

    I don’t like Deri, but this time he is correct: it is forbidden for a Jew to marry a goy, no matter how rich or famous he/she is….

    There is halacha and there is seculars who do what even they feel is ok….

    GMalka
    GMalka
    5 years ago

    A tragedy.

    triumphinwhitehouse
    triumphinwhitehouse
    5 years ago

    It usually is an Arab man and Jewish woman 99%of the time,

    5 years ago

    Its a 1+1=2. The Zionist ideology is to discard our past and live in the present culture of no Torah and Jewish values. This resulted in a shameful act of intermarriage. Herzel, Jabotinsk, Ben Gurion and the likes would be oh so proud! A shande beyond words!

    5 years ago

    Intermarriage rates are much higher in US and Europe than in Israel. No one would comment on such a story in the US. Indeed a US Jewish celebrity choosing to marry another Jew would make the news.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    5 years ago

    None of my business. I wish all newlyweds well.

    5 years ago

    I must sadly agree with Bruce.
    While intermarriage does happen in israel, sadly the rates of it in the USA even in inzere heimishe boys and girls from Williamsburg, boropark crown heights flatbush monsey etc are much higher.
    I don’t what it’s like in Lakewood now.
    Zol der Oibershter helfn.
    Only point is ppl thought Zionism was a help but isn’t because their leaders wanted assimilation and try to make it happen.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    5 years ago

    #14 Well, I wish all people well. Don’t you?