For this picture, you don't need a new Middle East, just one adventurous travel agent from Jerusalem, Benny Wexler, who managed to enter the Hadahiya district, under Hezbollah's nose, visit Jewish sites - and bring back unusual documentation from Lebanon. The article by Roy Case
Under Hezbollah's nose, Benny Wexler, an adventurous travel agent from Jerusalem, managed to enter the Hadahiya district, visit Jewish sites, and bring back unusual documentation from Lebanon.
""No taxi company wanted to take me to Dahiyya. I met a man at the hotel who works there and lives there. He told me, 'I got you, you're Jewish, don't worry. I'll take you there and be there with you.' I was on the main street of Hezbollah members," Wexler says.
He also visited near the bunker where Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated.
When asked if he didn't fear for his life, he replied: "I was very afraid. It was very scary. In Beirut everything is good and nice, but in Dahiya it's a different world. As soon as I got out safely - for me it was a very special moment.".
Wexler insisted on visiting the Jewish sites in Beirut as well. "I call a Jew who lives there and he tells me, 'I don't know what you want - I have no idea what a cemetery is.' It took me fifteen minutes to convince him. Later, we also spoke in Hebrew and he showed me the cemetery. He told me, 'You have to leave this country. I want to hear about you.' I told him that I would only leave after I saw the cemetery and the synagogue.
""The remaining Magen Avraham synagogue has been renovated. There are no prayers there, no gatherings, there is a terrible fear of gathering. There is no Jewish activity in Lebanon at the moment," he describes.
From Lebanon he continued to Syria, where he felt a completely different atmosphere. "Suddenly everything changed. I felt like they were just waiting for me to come. At first I was afraid to tell them I was Jewish, but later I realized that the more I told them about my origins, the more I would become a VIP.".
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