The FBI and Homeland Security have reportedly investigated a Lebanese-born Muslim man who posed as a Hasidic Jew to marry a Brooklyn girl. The Muslim man also claimed to be a US spy in order to protect his wild ruse.
The 23-year-old young man, Eliyah Hawila, recently tied the knot with a woman only identified as Sally in a lavish ceremony thrown by the bride’s family in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community, the Times of Israel reported.
According to a video he provided Kan TV, Israel’s state-run TV station, the wedding ceremony featured stretch limos and even helicopters — but none of the groom’s family.
Just a few weeks after the wedding, the bride’s suspicious father discovered his son-in-law’s real identity as Ali Hassan Hawila, a member of a Shiite family from southern Lebanon, a stronghold of the terror group Hezbollah, according to the Times of Israel.
Hawila admitted in his interview with Kan TV that his father-in-law did a research on his last name until he reached his father. “My father told my parents-in-law stuff about me that: ‘No, he’s not Jewish, he’s not this, he’s not that,’” Hawila admitted.
Hawila also admitted that he had already deceived his bride, lying to her that he was a US spy for the National Security Agency after she saw his true identity on papers. Hawila said he met Sally on a Jewish dating site.
When confronted by his new parents-in-law, Hawila repeated the same lie and “started making even more stuff up,” he told the TV station.
His trickery led the marriage to be instantly annulled — and investigated by the FBI and Homeland Security over fears that he was infiltrating the Jewish community for heinous reasons.
“I was panicking, and they took her away from me, they separated her away from me,” he said, at times sobbing over his apparent heartbreak.
However, investigators found nothing apart from Hawila’s confession about lying, the reports noted.
Hawila tells Kan TV that people started spitting on him in the streets when he came saying he was Jewish. I started getting death threats, and people would call me a ‘Jew, a Jewish dog,’” he said.
In September 2015, his family moved to Texas, and Hawila initially tried to formally convert. He gave himself the name ‘Eliyah’ saying because he loves the story of prophet Elijah in the Holy Bible.
Hawila told the TV station that he finally decided to speak out because “I can’t lie about anything anymore.”
“My lying is not justified, but at the same time, I lied because I was in pain, but I want to correct my mistake. I want them to understand where my pain is coming from,” he said.
During the investigation, the bride was reportedly moved to a safe house, the Times of Israel said. She has refused to give interviews, according to the source. Despite all the lies, heartbroken Hawila is hoping that his wife will give him a second chance.
“If she wants to give me a second chance, she can give me a second chance,” he told Kan TV. If she doesn’t want to, I still can’t blame her. But I want her to know she is the love of my life,” he said.
Even if she does, her Orthodox community’s rules will forbid her from marrying a convert, the paper noted.
Moreover, Hawila wants another kind of second chance, too, saying, “I just want to convert, and I want to live a Jewish life.”
