https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-805732
Almost nothing in the appearance of Yaron Avraham, a religious Jew, can provide any hint of his past life and horrible childhood experiences.
“I’m sorry for all the mess, I’ve been busy with setting up my new restaurant, a dream come true,” said Yaron Avraham, 46, smiling apologetically while talking to The Jerusalem Post. Almost nothing in the appearance of Avraham, a religious Jew, can provide any hint of his past life and horrible childhood experiences.
Avraham was born in Lod to a radical family affiliated with the Islamic Movement in Israel, the 12th child in a household of 18. “We usually start observing some of the Muslim commandments at the age of seven. This is when I was sent to mosques for the first time, aspiring to be a religious and pious man. I would wake up at 5:30 a.m.,” he remembered.
However, growing up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, he was also exposed to crime at a very young age. “I remember finishing my studies around 3 p.m., finding myself walking around with a backpack full of drugs to distribute between addresses I got.”
Drug trafficking was not the only type of crime he was exposed to. “In our culture, family honor is of the highest importance. It is not a religious matter but a cultural one, with the value of preserving the honor of the family sometimes even bypassing some religious commandments, especially when it comes to women, something the Western world would find difficult to grasp,” he explained.
“Women must uphold the ‘honor of the family’ by essentially obeying everything the men tell them, including how and when to leave the house, how to dress, whether to open a bank account and get a driver’s license, etc.,” he said.
“I had an older sister, Sarah. She was in 11th grade, around 17-18 years old, when I was nine. My older brother, a cruel and merciless drug dealer, yet pious in his way of life, approached Sarah one day and informed her that she was not allowed to leave the house without his consent. Not to meet friends, not to go to school – she had to get his permission for everything.
“But Sarah was not ready to listen. She had dreams and hopes and wanted to do everything that girls her age did, so she stood her ground. My brother did not like that, and soon Sarah was subject to recurring, terrible violence from him and two of the other older brothers.
What is Outbrain
“After three months of violence and torture, the older brother approached Sarah again and told her that he allowed her, in all his ‘kindness,’ to go out to work, but only if she dressed modestly and returned home at a set curfew of 5 p.m. There would be no talking to men, no going out, not anything else, just from work, home, and back.
“Sarah would sometimes come home late by a few minutes and had to face beatings and violence again. One evening she returned very late, around 8:30 p.m. She was ‘interrogated’ by my brothers and she admitted that she had gone for a walk in the mall.
“My oldest brother determined straight away that she had crossed a red line and disgraced the family’s honor. This is an unpardonable offense for which only one punishment exists.
“Around 10-10:30 p.m., the older brothers dragged all of us to our rooms and locked us in them, while Sarah was locked in another one. We heard terrible beatings and screams from the room next door, and it kept on going like that for hours.
At around 12:30 a.m., we started hearing the most horrible screams I have ever heard, of Sarah begging for her life. These terrible screams were the last 15 seconds of her life; the three brothers had slaughtered her there.
“I can hear her screams in my ear to this day, though it’s been 37 years. This is not something I can ever forget, a sister who screams and begs for her life – and then complete silence.
“During the night the body disappeared and no one knows where she is buried. For some reason she is still defined as ‘missing’ by the authorities,” Avraham added somberly.
“The doors were opened soon but we didn’t dare to leave our rooms. I left around 6:30 a.m. and saw that the room where everything happened was clean with barely a trace of anything.
