By Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff
The Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at Texas A&M is open to all Jewish faculty and students to explore Judaism.
In 2018, a student presenting himself as “Eliyah Haliwa” began visiting Chabad along with other local campus Jewish institutions, including serving as president at one of them. He would occasionally attend Shabbos meals at Chabad, and infrequently attended the services or Torah classes.
Last year, he met a woman from New York on a Jewish dating website. He falsely presented himself to her as observant. When asked by the woman and her family, I informed them that his conduct did not reflect that of a fully observant Jew.
The fundamental responsibility of the officiating rabbi at a wedding, the mesader kiddushin, is to determine the Jewish status (birur hayahadus) of the couple and ensure that they are both Jewish, single, and permitted to marry each other in accordance with Jewish law.
Accordingly, when Rabbi Ezra Zafrani, a respected Syrian rabbi in Lakewood, N.J., asked me if Eliyah was Jewish, I explicitly informed him that I did not know and that whoever was officiating would need to do a proper birur and would need to independently confirm his Jewish status.
The wedding itself was officiated by Rabbi Zafrani’s son, Rabbi David Zafrani. As my wife and I were in New York for other reasons, Rabbi David Zafrani, who was officiating in place of his father, and his wife, asked us to join the wedding. As the groom had no family attending, at the request of the couple and the Zafranis, we walked him down the aisle and I signed the kesubah, which had been drafted by Rabbi Ezra Zafrani. We were not officiating and our involvement was predicated on the understanding that, as supervising rabbis, Ezra and David Zafrani had done their due diligence to confirm the groom’s Jewish status.
In the ensuing weeks, it has come to light that the bride was aware that Eliyah was using a false name, information he concealed from others, when she learned of his Muslim name. We were clearly misled about his identity. Our hearts go out to this woman, her family and everyone else deceived by this individual here in Texas and in New York and New Jersey.
{Matzav.com
This should make chabad do a reality check. They must be more careful. no excuses!
Did you not read the article? The chabad rabbi explicitly said that they do not know if he’s Jewish, all research must be done by the Rav before officiating the wedding. Chabad didn’t marry them.
Can’t blame Chabbad. This person could have joined any shul anywhere in the world.
He intentionally deceived everyone in person and on the dating website.
The Rabbi expressed his concerns and might have helped if he spoke with the woman directly.
Could have been worse. There are cases of Arabs that intentionally deceive a woman by acting like a mentch. After the wedding they kidnap the woman and take her to some remote village in the middle-east and hold her hostage.
There are special ops teams to rescue these women and children
Everyone needs to be more careful and double check references.