Jewish marriage adverts on Israeli TV pulled after uproar

Published on Thursday 10 September 2009 22:11

ADVERTISEMENTS sponsored by the Israeli government that suggest Jewish people who marry out of their faith are "lost" or "dead" have been pulled from TV schedules, amid uproar.

The Hebrew language adverts start with a wide pan of railway tracks accompanied by mournful music – evoking for many viewers the tracks leading to death camps where Jews were exterminated by the Nazis in the Second World War.

They then show posters in English, French and Russian of young people with Jewish-sounding names. The posters are dominated by one word: "Lost".

"More than 50 per cent of Jewish youths abroad assimilate and become lost," says a voiceover. It urges viewers to call a number and report the names and contact information of Jewish youths abroad who can be saved by being brought to Israel to strengthen their Jewish identity.

The ads were co-sponsored by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office with the aim of bringing to Israeli Jews aged 18-30 for a year of study and volunteering on a programme known as masa – Hebrew for journey.

But they have struck a raw nerve among liberal Jews, who say they show a lack of understanding of conditions for Jews in the West, where intermarriage does not always mean the end of Jewish affiliation."

It's telling Israelis that Jews in the diaspora are second-class Jews," said rabbi Gilad Kariv, director of the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism.

"This is an entirely negative campaign," he added."

Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg added: "I don't think who a Jewish student in Boston is dating is the business of the prime minister of Israel."

Assimilation, or weakening of Jewish identity among Jews living outside of Israel, is one of the most hotly debated issues in the Jewish world. One-third of the world's Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and many Jews fear that intermarriage and assimilation threaten the survival of the Jews as a people.

Despite the row, organisers say the ad campaign is a big success and they have been inundated with thousands of calls from Israelis asking that their relatives abroad be contacted.

Natan Sharansky, of the Jewish Agency, the ad's co-sponsor, said: "Strengthening the ties between diaspora Jewry and the state of Israel assists in the struggle against assimilation. At the same time, we must avoid offending diaspora Jews and find a common language between them and the citizens of Israel."