The Real Love Island, Where Couples Defy Taboos To
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14 The Sunday Times July 22, 2018 WORLD NEWS SPYROS CHRISTOFI Cyprus is the Gretna Green Lyvia Stahl Zanella and Oren of the Middle East: people Sharabi embrace after their fly in to marry outside the wedding in strictures of their religion Paphos, Cyprus or families, then jet out LOUISE CALLAGHAN Paphos The Mediterranean sea swelled in the background and sunburnt holiday- makers looked on as the young couple embraced on the jetty. He wore flip-flops. She wore a sundress and a crown of white roses. Two years after they had met while working in a Tel Aviv ice cream shop, they were finally married — not in Israel, where they both live, but in Cyprus, the real Love Island. “We couldn’t have done this at home,” laughed Lyvia Stahl Zanella, 35, as her brown curls whipped in the sea breeze. “So we just came here.” Every year 3,000 couples from all cor- The ners of the Middle East marry in Cyprus — many in defiance of their family and reli- wedding gious traditions. Unlike most countries in the region, Cyprus allows civil marriages. costs a For the Romeos and Juliets of the region, unable to marry at home because few they belong to different religions or sects, this is their default destination. For hundred others it is a chance to marry in a cere- mony free of religious overtones. euros With a round of applause from the five onlookers — two of them Sunday and Times journalists — Zanella and her boyfriend Oren Sharabi, 27, became a takes a married couple. When the couple, both liberal Jews, couple of decided to get married, they did not want an Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony — hours the only kind available in Israel. So, like many of their friends, they got on a 55-minute flight from Tel Aviv to Cyprus. Inside the cool stone walls of Paphos town hall, on the island’s south- ern coast, they stood — eyes brimming, hands clasped — for a five-minute cere- mony before signing a few documents. The real Love Island, where They were married in time for lunch. “That was easy,” laughed Zanella, after the Cypriot official pronounced them husband and wife. “This is our Gretna Green,” said Stella Verdi, 54, a British-Cypriot wedding planner, as Zanella and Sharabi posed for couples defy taboos to wed photographs. Over the past 15 years she has arranged hundreds of weddings on the island for couples from the United Arab Emirates, couple waited in the shade for their turn, In the afternoon they fly back. The cials. While neither of them is religious, would have given her lessons on married their marriage contracts and will return Lebanon, Israel and even the UK. Often the bride only just keeping her balance entire operation costs a few hundred Ahmed’s family is Muslim and Delphine’s life. It’s really complicated and bureau- home with the same paperwork. she is their only guest and witness. in high stilettos. On some summer euros and takes a couple of hours: a is Christian. In Lebanon, as in Israel, civil cratic. Instead we came here. It’s like a On each side of the chasms that divide “Sometimes people haven’t even told mornings more than a dozen couples stark contrast to the lavish religious cere- marriages are not permitted. Religious holiday and a wedding.” the Middle East there are young people their families,” she said. “And they ask if queue to marry. monies common in the Middle East, leaders sometimes lecture couples on Cypriot town halls have become one of who do not want to be constrained by it’s possible to not write the religion on In Larnaca, to the east, the number is where celebrations can last for days and everything from intimacy to asset man- the few places where Israelis can rub religion or sect. the marriage certificate. They really even higher. Couples there jet into the involve hundreds of family members. agement before letting them marry. shoulders with people from neighbour- “It’s easy here,” said Doxa Economi- worry about that. Sometimes their airport straight from Beirut or Tel Aviv, A couple from Lebanon, Ahmed and “If we had got married in Lebanon, ing countries — often unknowingly — dou, an administrator at Paphos town families find out when they send them a drive to the town hall, show their birth Delphine, waited on the road outside one of us would have had to renounce even though their governments may be hall. “No one discriminates. Everyone is picture of the wedding itself.” certificates and pledge to honour each their embassy in Nicosia for their our religion,” Ahmed said. sworn enemies. welcome. This is the island of Aphrodite.” In the courtyard outside another other until death do them part. marriage certificate to be checked by offi- “If we did it in the church, the priest They queue next to each other to sign @louiseelisabet US police braced New Yorkers in uproar over for millions of city clampdown on Airbnb untraceable guns Josh Glancy meet the city’s exorbitant the hotel industry, we’re not New York cost of living. surprised the city council The New York Post voted to protect the profits of Danny Fortson swiftly downloaded by more This city has some of the most lambasted the city council for big hotels and not their own than 100,000 people. The expensive hotel rooms in the its close funding links to the constituents, who rely on The era of downloadable Department of State ordered world, so naturally its Airbnb hotel industry, which along home sharing to pay the guns has arrived after a Texas him to cease, claiming that market has boomed. But a bill with the hotel workers’ union bills,” said Liz DeBold Fusco man won a five-year battle what he was doing amounted passed by the city council last has lobbied ferociously for Airbnb. with the American to the illegal export of arms. week threatens to decimate against home sharing. “The fix was in from the government for the right to Wilson’s legal battle was the home-sharing company’s In a rare show of accord start and now New Yorkers publish blueprints for mostly self-funded, with help operations here. the New York Daily News, a will be subject to unchecked, firearms that can be from the Second Amendment New York joins a growing rival tabloid, implored the aggressive harassment and produced on a simple home Foundation, a gun-rights number of cities that have city to “leave the hell alone privacy violations, rubber 3D printer. group. His Liberator spawned regulated Airbnb, part of a the bulk of Airbnb hosts, stamped by the city council.” Cody Wilson, who calls a small but passionate wider crackdown on the ordinary people who are Philip Edwards, an Airbnb himself a “crypto-anarchist”, community of makers of perceived excesses of the hurting no one while trying to host who gave testimony to described his gun as a “homebrew” weapons. sharing economy. make a few dollars on the side the council, claimed he is “political project” with the The capabilities of the guns The bill, which was passed to cover their costs”. able to afford his home in the goal of “undermining the are limited. As 3D printing 45-0 on Wednesday, seeks to Airbnb ran a well-funded city only because he rents it liberal state”. gets more advanced, and the clamp down on tenants and but ultimately unsuccessful out short-term when he Wilson, 30, runs Defense printers themselves become landlords who are making PR campaign against the bill. travels for work. Distributed, which tested the cheaper, however, what is a weapons. Wilson said “a few Wilson: funded the rise of untraceable guns, extra money by renting out New York is the company’s “This is my own home, I first 3D-printed gun in 2013. fringe activity could become thousand” people have legal fight via which has come in response apartments to tourists on a largest American market, but am not taking off housing He called it “the Liberator”, a widespread — especially if signed up to upload designs bitcoin to the most basic of new short-term basis, a trend the there are also fears that being stock,” he said. mostly plastic, single-shot Wilson makes available for for components or entire buying rules, has unsettled city claims has fuelled soaring heavily regulated in such a “Your bill doesn’t just firearm. Wilson uploaded its free the blueprints of weapons. law enforcement officers. The rents. Bill de Blasio, the tourist hot spot could tarnish attack bad-actor landlords schematics, which were hundreds or thousands of His surprise victory Los Angeles police mayor, is expected to sign the their brand globally. trying to convert entire alarmed law enforcement department said this month bill into law very soon. Other cities, including buildings. It blocks struggling officials and anti-gun that it had seen an increase in It will compel all Airbnb Vancouver and Barcelona, individuals for surviving for advocates, who warn that it homemade semi-automatic and other home-sharing firms have similar laws. London the benefit of the hotel could undermine attempts to assault rifles and pistols used to pass on the identities and has some regulation too, industry.” curtail gun rights. by the city’s gangs. addresses of its hosts to the limiting the number of days The city council argues The downloaded “ghost Asked if he was concerned city’s Office of Special that a host can rent a that curbing illegal home guns” will not have serial that he was making a serious Enforcement, or face a fine.