Case of Shmuel Faber
Volunteer - KACH Rescue Squad, West Bank, Israel
(Alleged Victim 1), an attractive 35-year-old who broke away from the sisters program with her three children after several months, accused one of her rescuers, Shmuel Faber, of consistently trying to pressure her into sexual acts.
(Alleged Victim 1) said Faber, a 32-year-old ex-combat officer, was guilty of "sexually exploiting" several other rescued women as well, but she could offer no witnesses to back up her account. Instead, she produced a signed letter from another rescued woman, (Alleged Victim 2), who claimed to have engaged in sex with Faber as a way of obtaining better treatment.
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Table of Contents
1986
- Jewish women not always pleased at being 'rescued' from Arab 'enemy' (06/06/1986)
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Jewish women not always pleased at being 'rescued' from Arab 'enemy'
By Michael Widlanski
The Ottawa Citizen - March 6, 1986
QIRYAT ARBA, Israeli-occupied West Bank - For many months Meir Kahane, the American rabbi turned Israeli politician, has been organizing dangerous rescue missions "to save souls" in "enemy" territory, but some of those "saved" have mixed feelings toward their rescuers.
Usually, a rescue operation unfolds in the dead of night as highly trained members of Kahane's militant KACH movement sneak into an Arab village or neighborhood with their sights set on one of the more than 5,000 Jewish women who are the legal or common-law wives of Arab men.
The women, some as young as 14 and as old as 45, have lived a strange borderline existence inside Arab society, raising families and trying "to pass" as Arabs. They speak Arabic, and some have even officially converted to Islam. Sometimes, only her Arab husband and occasionally her children know that a woman was born Jewish.
The KACH operatives, who are armed, want to bring these women back to their Jewish roots, literally. They will quietly put such a woman and her children into a waiting car or van and make their way as quickly and quietly as possible to a set of drab "emergency apartments" here.
When things do not go smoothly, the village wakes up and there is the danger of a riot as villagers often forcibly prevent what they see as the kidnapping of a neighbor. Indeed, even if the woman declares that she is going of her own free will, Islamic law regards the children of a Moslem father as Moslems, while Jewish law regards the children of a Jewish mother as Jews.
"We're doing something which is holy, which is to sanctify the Lord's name," Kahane said in an interview in his Jerusalem office. He and his followers call their program yad l'ahayot - "a helping hand to the sisters" - or keren l'hatzalat nefashot - "the fund for saving souls."
"We are saving Jewish souls, and for he who saves one life it is as if he saved a whole world," declared the bearded ultranationalist.
But in interviews here, some of the women "saved" by Kahane seemed to have been crushed by their salvation.
"I'm torn, and I don't know what to do," cried Yaffa Hamadan, who took her seven children with her when she fled her Arab husband in the village of Kfar Kana a month ago with the aid of a KACH rescue squad.
The 42-year-old housewife, whose maiden name was Yaffa Cohen, said leaving her husband, Fuad Hamadan, had hurt her children.
"They had a good father, and they went to school, and I've only caused them problems," said Mrs. Hamadan, looking at three of her seven children as they huddled around a badly battered electric heater which was the only source of heat in the apartment.
Mrs. Hamadan explained that after 15 years in the Arab village of Kfar Kana, she began to yearn for contact with Jews and went to visit her sister in Jerusalem. The sister and other family members contacted the KACH organization for assistance in organizing the "escape" of Mrs. Hamadan and her seven children.
But Mrs. Hamadan said she was now beset by deep quilt because her return to Jewish society had cut off her children from their friends and their father.
"I don't think I did the right thing, and I'm torturing my children who cry that they don't have enough to eat," she said, explaining that KACH's "sisters" program allotted her 80 shekels ($53) per week for her family's total needs.
The distraught housewife said she and her children had been housed with several different younger women, some of whom, she said, had engaged in sex with strange men while her children were in the apartment.
(Alleged Victim 1), an attractive 35-year-old who broke away from the sisters program with her three children after several months, accused one of her rescuers, Shmuel Faber, of consistently trying to pressure her into sexual acts.
(Alleged Victim 1) said Faber, a 32-year-old ex-combat officer, was guilty of "sexually exploiting" several other rescued women as well, but she could offer no witnesses to back up her account. Instead, she produced a signed letter from another rescued woman, (Alleged Victim 2), who claimed to have engaged in sex with Faber as a way of obtaining better treatment.
KACH officials confirmed that the letter was authentic, but they said it had been obtained through trickery and pressure and that (Alleged Victim 2) had since recanted what she had written. Efforts to contact (Alleged Victim 2) through the KACH office were not successful.
Faber, interviewed in the KACH offices in Jerusalem, categorically denied the charges of sexual impropriety, adding: "Do you think Rabbi Kahane would keep me around for one minute if he thought there was the slightest chance these charges could be true?"
Kahane himself said the charges were not worthy of a reply.
Hanania Ben-David, director of the ritual baths here and a founder of the KACH rescue program, admitted that there was some truth to the charges of illicit sex in apartments set aside for the KACH program.
"It could be," Ben-David said, referring to the charges and other reports that one or more members of the KACH rescue squad had sexually accosted some of the women they had rescued.
Ben-David, a 44-year-old father of eight who is highly regarded for his piety by residents here, seemed genuinely disturbed by the reports of illicit sex.
Ben-David and Faber confirmed that of the "more than 100 women" rescued, four have returned to Arab society. Ben-David and other KACH officials conceded that they lack the financial support and professional expertise to run a proper social welfare program involving major relocation, remedial education, family counseling and job placement.
"It is both delicate and dirty, and we have no models to learn from," said Ben- David.
He, Kahane and other KACH officials said that the rescued women themselves were "marginal types" - poor, uneducated and not really at home either in Arab or Jewish society. "We're not dealing with an elite group here," said Faber, who said he receives no salary from the KACH organization for this rescue work. He noted that some of the rescued women were drug users or had taken up with Arab men who were known criminals.
"A Jewish girl has a certain mentality, and when she consorts with Arabs her mentality changes and she doesn't take care of herself,"said Faber.
Kahane agreed, adding, "We have a problem with the quality of people, and the very fact that such a girl would marry an Arab says something about what has happened to her."
Some of the rescued Jewish women said they had been enticed into leaving their homes by false promises of a better life inside Jewish society. Others complained of deplorable conditions inside the spartan, often unheated barracks-like apartments here where the women and their children sleep eight to a room on metal beds.
Kahane and other KACH officials said Israeli Minister of Interior Yitzhak Peretz had visited the "sisters' residence" two weeks ago and wept in sympathy with the condition of the women. "But his tears won't feed the children," said Kahane.
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