The 'Lebanese Groom' arrives in Israel

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/326341

A Lebanese born man who found himself at the center of a scandal in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community last year is in Israel now, and has declared his intentions to spend the rest of his life in the Jewish state.

In October 2021, Eliya Hawila married a young Syrian-Jewish woman in Brooklyn, New York in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony – despite having been raised in a Shi’ite Muslim family in southern Lebanon.

Shortly thereafter, Hawila’s bride and her family discovered his background, with the couple separating and news of the ‘Lebanese groom’ sending shockwaves through the Orthodox community.

Hawila later apologized for the deception, but insisted he is sincere in his desire to live as an Orthodox Jew, and said he hopes to reconcile with his estranged wife.

In early April 2022, however, a Brooklyn rabbi who investigates questions regarding Jewish ancestry found that Hawila was in fact born Jewish.