Sunday May 8, 4:05 AM
Romance Leads to Arrest of Rabbi's Kin
The story reads like pulp fiction: The wayward son of a powerful rabbinic family kidnaps and violently abuses his teenage sister's would-be suitor to prevent an affair that violates the family's strict religious codes.
The real-life tale culminated in the arrest earlier this week of the wife, daughter and son of Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, and two alleged Bedouin accomplices.
The family members were suspected in the abduction and assault of a 17-year-old, ultra-Orthodox youth because they reportedly objected to his relationship with the rabbi's 18-year-old daughter, Ayala, whom he met in an Internet chat room.
"They cut off his side locks, ripped his skull cap, beat him, spat at him, humiliated him and set the dogs on him," chief police investigator Alon Grossman told Israel Army Radio on Saturday.
However, another of the rabbi's sons denied any family plot, saying his brother had acted alone and was alienated from the family and its values.
Israeli media reported Saturday that Amar, who was in Thailand, would be questioned by police on his return. ADVERTISEMENT
Amar serves as Sephardi Chief Rabbi for Jews who originated in North Africa and Spain. Israel also has an Ashkenazi chief rabbi who guides Jews of European extraction. Chief rabbis are state officials.
In ultra-Orthodox Jewish society, contact between unmarried men and women is frowned upon. But in a bizarre twist, the main suspect in the case is the rabbi's estranged son, Meir, 31, who abandoned his religious upbringing and has been living a secular life with little contact with his family.
Police said Ayala lured the youth, who was not identified, to a car where Meir grabbed him at knifepoint and took him to the nearby Arab town of Kalansua, to a house belonging to the two Bedouin suspects.
"They arrived at a house in Kalansua, there the cycle of abuse began," Grossman said. The daughter was present during the beatings that lasted several hours, he said, although it was not clear what her motive might have been.
Grossman said they also had evidence that Amar's wife, Mazal, was involved, although he refused to confirm media reports that she was the one who initiated the kidnapping.
"We know the mother was in the Amar family house when they brought the kidnapped (youth) there after Kalansua. There, they continued to beat him while the mother was in the house," Grossman told the radio.
Grossman did not specify when the arrests were made but said the investigation began 10 days ago when the youth was brought to a Tel Aviv area hospital suffering from injuries to his head, throat and other body parts.
A court-ordered gag on the case was lifted Friday when a Tel Aviv court ruled that Meir Amar and the two Bedouins, identified as Ahmed and Abdullah Sualameh, should be kept in custody pending further investigation. The wife and daughter were released to house arrest. No charges have yet been filed.
Reaction to the case was muted in Israel's ultra-Orthodox community because it was announced just hours before the Jewish Sabbath.
The family wanted to teach the youth that this sort of relationship was unacceptable according to their religious codes, Grossman said.
"The whole point was to end this connection, to separate them and to teach him a lesson for next time," he said.
But family members said the incident had nothing to do with their ideals and blamed it on Meir and his lack of religious values.
"To our great sorrow our parents cry tears over (Meir) because they are hurt that their child has cut off all ties with home. He has acquired a mentality that has nothing to do with the house," another of Amar's sons, Eliyahu, told Israel Radio in an interview broadcast Saturday.
"That's what led him to do what he has done ... If that turns out to be true, it is because of the mentality that he lives in."
He said the family knew about the relationship between Ayala and the youth for three months and tried to dissuade the couple through peaceful means.
"Nobody lifted a finger," Eliyahu said. "They spoke nicely to the girl and with the young man in attempt to explain our way of life to them."
However, he acknowledged the family completely disapproved of the relationship.
"In our society, as long as people are not married ... no contact between a girl and a boy is acceptable," he said.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050507/ap/d89uhv2o1.html
