Jewish wife of formerly secular Muslim husband tells of escape from Iraq

by WorldTribune Staff, August 18, 2016

A Jewish woman who refused to convert to radical Islam managed to escape from Iraq after her husband threatened to sell her as a slave to Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

The woman was reunited this week with her family in the town of Patish in southern Israel, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 2.

The woman made her way to Turkey amid a group of refugees. /AFP/Getty Images
The woman made her way to Turkey with  a group of refugees. /AFP/Getty Images

The husband, a previously secular Muslim, had recently embraced radical Islam – and demanded the woman do the same. When she refused, her husband threatened to sell her to ISIL.

“He told me, ‘if you don’t obey me, I will give you over to ISIL,’ ” said the woman, identified by Channel 2 as Liza, a descendant of a Jewish family in Kurdistan. Most of Liza’s family moved to Israel in the 1950s.

“He said I was acting like a Jew,” she added. “I feared for my life, because he was threatening me that if I didn’t act like a Muslim woman and keep the Koran, he would hand me over to ISIL.”

“I was terrified because I had seen what they did to the Yazidi women – they kill them just because they aren’t Muslims.”

Liza fled her home in Iraq, leaving behind her four children, and made her way to Turkey amid a group of refugees. Once in Turkey, Liza was able to contact her family living in Israel.

“An Israeli official with contacts inside the Turkish government aided her during her stay in Turkey, and ultimately facilitated her move to Israel,” Channel 2 reported.