Jewish Woman Comes Home After Two Years

Lehava organization brings home a 25-year-old Jewish woman and her one-year-old baby, two years after she ran away with an Arab boyfriend.

The Lehava anti-assimilation organization has been able to locate a young Jewish woman and her one-year-old baby, two years after she ran away from her home with an Arab boyfriend.

Aryeh from the Lehava organization told Arutz Sheva on Thursday about the rescue operation. He said that the 25-year-old woman, originally from Jerusalem, left her parents’ home two years ago after meeting an Arab man at her workplace. The woman, who was identified only as A, ran away with the man to an Arab village in northern Israel, where she gave birth about a year ago.

Aryeh said that A’s parents contacted Lehava, but all attempts to make contact with A were unsuccessful until Wednesday.

“Yesterday the father told me that there is a new development and that she may want to come back home, so we drove to northern Israel together,” he said. “Fortunately she had not yet converted to Islam and married him in some official capacity, otherwise what we did would have been considered kidnapping.”

Aryeh said that A had told him that as the holiday of Passover approached, she began to miss her parents and the festive mood in their home. “There are stories of girls getting hit, but in this case she was respected by the man. But she said she missed Passover, Jerusalem, and her mother and father. She got her Jewish spark back.”

Aryeh recalled that he went to the Arab village in the morning and was told by A where to go to find her.

“I hid my peyas under my cap and took all the Judea and Samaria stickers off my car to avoid being recognized,” he said. “I drove through the village until I saw her with the baby. I waited with the baby in the car, and she brought all her bags out. Within a half an hour we were out of there.”

He added, “It was a miracle, she lived on a street on which an Arab clan lives in five houses right next to each other. It was ten o'clock and there was not a soul out there.”

The emotional reunion between A and her parents was held later that evening, in a safe apartment in central Israel.

The deputy mayor of the northern Israeli town of Afula recently said that a growing number of young Jewish girls are marrying Arabs.

Lehava chairman Bentzi Gopstein has said the Knesset must pass a law that prohibits seduction of a minor, in order to fight the phenomenon.

A 15-year-old missing Jewish teen from Lod was recently found in an Arab village, a few weeks after running away with an Arab man.

“We’re currently handling more than 500 cases of Israeli girls aged 13 and over who are in contact with non-Jews,” Aryeh said. “We speak in schools and in girls’ ulpanot to prevent this phenomenon. Remember, we at the Lehava organization are always here to help.”