From lies to scamming

rainbow dash

Mon, Dec 06 2021, 5:20 pm

https://www.gofundme.com/f/hel.....sheet

Help my dream to convert to Judaism in Israel
Eliyah Hawila is organizing this fundraiser.

Quote:

Dear all,

As most of you know by now, the reality of my lack of halachic status as a Jew has come to the fore. Consequently, I have been separated from the girl who until recently was my spouse (and whose name I will omit out of respect for her privacy and confidentiality). I do not wish to project myself as a victim or someone that deserves sympathy. I was 100% wrong, and there's no downplaying that reality.

For years, I lived as an open Jew, hurting many people in the process. I was hosted for countless shabbatot by beloved rabbis, was very involved in the Jewish life of Texas A&M University (Chabad, Students Supporting Israel, Hillel, AEPi [where I served as president]), and even occasionally read from the Torah at Bnei Binyamin Torah Center in Brooklyn. Worst of all, I married a girl in the Syrian Jewish community, undergoing the halachic processes of kiddushin and nissuin knowing in the pit of my heart that I was continuing down a hole I had wittingly dug myself into many years back.

Those of you privy to my story know that this saga began years before meeting the girl I married, back when I was still living in Lebanon. Despite having a traditional Shi'a father who would attend mosque and observe Muslim holidays, my mother was secular and uninterested in this path of life. I, too, was always disposed to following my mother in this regard, and would not go to mosque or even study prayers with my father – much to his ire. Simply put, the religion of Islam never spoke to me, and so I was stuck in a religious limbo, out of place with my general community and peers.

Over time, I began thinking more deeply about spirituality and ontological questions. Many hours of my free time were spent reading about Judaism, its precepts gripping my soul. For the first time, I felt an intuitive connection to something I had until then never felt. Once initiated, I never looked back. I even secretly knitted a kippah from cardboard and cloth, and would tell people in my circles that I don't hate Jews or Israel. I went so far to say that I'd like to visit a synagogue and spoke of the veracity of Judaism. My affinity for Judaism essentially became an open secret among those around me, and I even would get spit at and have hostile rhetoric directed towards me (such as "Yehudi kalb!", "Jewish dog!").

My mom, who was and is supportive of me, nonetheless told me I have to cease my activities as she was scared for our family's safety. And so I remained down-low for a while, still continuing to read more but not advertising my thoughts. Eventually, an opportunity to actualize my deepest aspirations presented itself.

My father, who possessed US citizenship in addition to his Lebanese one, moved with my family to the US and had us naturalized. My father and mom separated shortly thereafter, the former returning to Lebanon and the latter still living in Texas where we (including my younger brother) had settled and where I also continued to set my American roots. A science nerd from my earliest days, I set out to attend Texas A&M and pursue a track in Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science. (PS: the viral photo of me holding an Arabic-worded certificate was because I had won an award from my local district for having the highest senior exam scores in my district and the 15th-highest in all of Lebanon.)

Before Texas A&M, back in 2015 when I first touched down in the US and was just 17 years old, I already reached out to a local Reform congregation in my area of Houston (Congregation Beth Israel) to inquire about formal conversion. If you're wondering why it was a Reform synagogue specifically, it's because I simply Googled synagogues near me, and that was what popped up as the synagogue nearest me (nor did I at that point know enough to realize such a conversion would have been short of what I'd be satisfied with anyways). I subsequently spent countless hours attempting to call and make contact with the synagogue, mostly in vain. When I did get through, I was always told I'd get back to or else to go through such-and-such bureaucratic channels. There was essentially no reciprocal hand, and I didn't feel like I'd be able to actually progress in any meaningful manner.

Once at Texas A&M, I immediately began looking into Jewish life on campus, and so initially ended up at the Chabad. Once there, I was asked if I was Jewish. Figuring that I would be denied access to Chabad and Jewish circles on campus generally if I were to be forthright, I answered in the affirmative. At that point in time, I was merely attempting to remain afloat and to connect further to Jewish outlets, not thinking prudently or long-term.

Eventually I saw that Jewish circles on campus, including Chabad, actually did invite non-Jews with open arms. However at this point I was so entrenched in my former lie that I feared coming clean would make me lose all my friends and associations I'd developed, making me a persona non grata. I hence continued to "go with the flow" in terms of my identity, suppressing the truth to the point where it was buried beyond my own active conscious surface. In hindsight I realize this was a colossal mistake and error in judgement. To the contrary, coming clean to Chabad of all groups would've been met with sympathetic ears and likely have facilitated active assistance in helping me convert the right way.

After that, the downward spiral just continued. While I was increasing my Torah knowledge and observance, the web of lies underlying the central untruth of my identity continued to fester. As aforementioned, before I knew it I was fully embedded in an array of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, and was more or less exclusively associating with the Jewish community. I began casually talking to some Jewish girls online from Jewish-themed Facebook groups I was in, seeing what would come of it (I was still in Texas A&M at the time, and the breadth of the domestic Jewish community wasn't exactly NYC-level, to say the least.)

While some of these correspondences had traction, they didn't work out one way or another. In some cases, the other party lost interest; in others, I did. After this interval I made a profile with the renowned Jewish dating site "Saw You at Sinai," where I met the girl I would eventually marry. From the get-go there was an immediate spark and bilateral chemistry. Before I knew it, I had fallen for this girl. She was beautiful, had amazing middot, shared common values, spoke Arabic (recall I was still saying I'm of the Lebanese Jewish community, so was not hiding that element on my end), was on a similar religious wavelength (obvious technicalities of my non-Jewishness aside), and was just an overall perfect counterpart.

My deepest secret, something which until then had long been suppressed and had no large-scale implications, was no longer something I could just shove aside. This was not merely continuing with the flow in terms of my entrenchment within Jewish clubs and organizations on campus, but something very, very serious. I could just come clean and undergo a conversion. Surely a girl who viewed me as someone worth marrying would entertain waiting several months or so for me to formally become Jewish, perhaps even genuinely understanding my convoluted situation.

What made this deliberation far more difficult, however, was that I became privy to the fact that the Syrian Jewish community has a strictly-enforced edict going back to 1935 which prohibits marrying converts. Although conversion is something deeply safeguarded by the Torah and halacha, I still understand the context in which this was put into effect (apparently during this time, before the community established their own schools and resources, many Syrian Jewish youth attended public schools and intermingled with gentile girls – hence the community, fearing that such mixing would potentially be followed by faux/disingenuous conversions, set out to decree excommunication upon those in the community who married converts in the hope of preventing assimilation).

Nonetheless, I feared that my coming clean would make me inevitably lose her. My selfishness ultimately prevailed, caring more about my heart's desire to spend my life with this girl and raise a family with her than the fact that a central component of our relationship was rooted in deceit. Sure, I tried to justify some of it (say, for instance, any kids we had would anyways be halachically Jewish by default, and if we left the community at some point I could just confess – at which point it would merely be a bureaucratic technicality I could easily navigate due to my existing knowledge and commitment). I was thinking in the moment, and very selfishly and shamefully at that.

What has been done has been done, and there's no way for me to undo the grave harm I've caused or to exonerate myself. The only thing I can do is implore for a chance to do teshuva and prove myself, to the Jewish community at large but especially to the girl in question. Forgiveness is not something I can expect, let alone demand. This is something I'll carry for the rest of my life. But I beg for the chance to show action. The most immediate way I can do this is by undergoing an Orthodox geirut process.

This itself is an arduous endeavor which would take many months at the very least. I've spent years living as a proud Jew, and this long preceded meeting the girl I married. The authenticity of my lifestyle is also verified by the numerous people in the Jewish world who have known me over the years and even by my hometown community in Lebanon, where locals told reporters that I had always spoken fondly of Jews and my dream to visit a synagogue. As shown in the Kan 11 news report, I even had a selfie with my mother wearing a Magen Dovid necklace. Malicious intent on my end has been ruled out by none less than my harshest critics, pointing to the FBI's investigation of me which showed no foul play.

Still, I have until now taken the easy and cowardly way out, not mustering the courage to take responsibility and do things the right way. As I mentioned earlier, I cannot undo my wrongdoing, and I take full fault for the awful hurt I've caused. With that said, moving forward, I wish to choose responsibility and accountability. I am more than willing to undergo a conversion process and begin to take at least the smallest of steps in undoing the damage I've wrought.

At this point, everything I breathe and experience is Jewish. To not be part of this world is unfathomable to me, as egregious as my iniquity was. I hope one day to be able to gain this girl's forgiveness in full and prove myself to her in the long-term, but undergoing this lengthy process will show an iota of commitment and accountability at the very least.

A number of mentors and acquaintances within the Jewish community have privately told me that they support my decision to formally become Jewish, but have noted that the case is understandably loaded with baggage and hence batei din in the United States will almost certainly not want to touch it. However, this is less so the case in Israel. Moreover, conversions in Israel are generally the gold standard as it is, as they are overseen by the Rabbanut and universally accepted.

As it so happens, I've received an offer from Yechezkel Sivak, the mayor of Kfar Haroeh (a religious moshav located in the Hefer Valley Regional Council of the Central District), to come to Israel and be assisted in my conversion process. The moshav's Bnei Akiva yeshiva is Rabbanut-accredited, and I would be studying under the auspices of Rabbi Chaim Zamir.

Conversion in Israel is thus my current and immediate desire. Doing so would require financial resources, however, even with

assistance from the municipality and yeshiva. When the news of my situation broke, I lost my job as a software engineer which was granted to me by a member of the Syrian Jewish community. I'm currently living out of a hotel in Albany, riding out this ordeal. My maternal aunt and grandmother gave me some limited funds to continue paying for my room and buying food (not eating any non-kosher for the record), but that can't last forever and certainly can't get me through many months or even a year-plus in Israel.

I therefore implore all those reading my GoFundMe to consider donating whatever you can to assist me in this process. The funds would be going towards a flight, housing, food, sefarim, transportation, and yeshiva costs. I moreover commit to full transparency in allowing the yeshiva to have full oversight over allocated funds and that they are used exclusively towards the overall conversion process.

Please do not consider contributions as a statement of absolution on your end – my overarching wrongdoing is mine alone. But I implore you to separate my transgression from my genuine and static desire to be Jewish. I hope I can do teshuva and ultimately prove myself in action rather than just words.

Third party links to my story:

(1) Zev Brenner podcast interview: https://youtu.be/ak9r0p4DkTY

(2) Tablet Magazine article ("From Beirut to Brooklyn"): https://www.tabletmag.com/sect.....awila

(3) Israel's Kan 11 report ("I connected with Judaism, and then the lies got out of hand"; PS: this requires the 'VPN Israel' app download for access - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y12mSF8ojQE)

Tizku l'mitzvot.

Sincerely,

Eliyah Hawila