Israeli campaign targets Jews 'abducted' by intermarriage

Dana Weiler-Polak, writing in Haaretz this week, comments on a new advertising campaign which "targets Jews 'abducted' by intermarriage." She writes,

"The Prime Minister's Office and the Jewish Agency unveiled an aggressive advertisement campaign for the Masa project which is designed to strengthen Jewish identity among youths in the Diaspora and their bonds to Israel.

One video clip likens Jews who marry outside of the religion to missing persons, with fake notices and pictures which drive home the point.

As part of the campaign, similar "missing person" notices will be plastered on walls around the country.

Masa hopes the campaign will spur the public to commit to the cause of preventing marriage to non-Jews, which Jewish Agency officials believe is tantamount to a "strategic national threat."

According to figures compiled by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, over 50 percent of Jews in the Diaspora marry a non-Jewish partner.

Studies show that Jews who participate in extensive programs in Israel deepen their Jewish identity and strengthen their bond to the country. Most of them marry Jews and send their children to Jewish schools and become politically and socially active on behalf of Israel-related causes. Some of them even immigrate to Israel.

The head of the campaign, Motti Scharf, compared assimilation to the critical water shortage. "Even though this is an existential problem, the public in Israel is displaying apathy towards it because the process is slow and not dramatic, out of sight," he said. "The time has come to put the issue on the table."

Philip Weiss comments,

"This could be a big story, if the media would unblinker itself. The ad encapsulates the problem with a state that is tied so directly to ethnicity. It has to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem. It has to have grossly-discriminatory immigration policies. It has to have separate roadways. And now it has to proselytize the race in other countries like Mississippi Governor Theodore Bilbo preaching against the "mongrelization" of the white race.

It’s surely offensive to people like– say, Dennis Ross, or Andrea Koppel, or descendants of the late Richard Hofstadter — all the product of intermarriage. Is any US tax money paying for this?"

Cnaan Liphshiz, also writing for Haaretz, adds,

"The 10-day Hebrew-language campaign, to be shown on television and online, was prepared by a leading advertising firm at the behest of MASA, a partnership between the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government that helps finance and market semester- and year-length Israel programs for Diaspora Jews. "More than 50 percent of young Jews assimilate," the filmed commercial informs viewers through the voice of Ayala Hasson, a top reporter for Channel 1. "We are losing them," she adds, as soft, melancholy flute music plays in the background.

The 33-second clip features images of missing-person posters hanging in locales in Europe and North America. The posters, in English, French and Russian, show young people with Jewish-sounding names. One "lost" person can be seen wearing a T-shirt that reads "I love Israel." The ad then asks anyone who "knows a young Jew living abroad" to call MASA. "Together, we will strengthen his or her bond to Israel, so that we don't lose them," the announcer concludes. The advertisement is MASA's first appeal to the Israeli public. "So far, MASA has advertised itself only to prospective candidates [for its programs]," said Ayelet Shiloh-Tamir, MASA's CEO, at a press conference held at the offices of Scherff Communication, the advertising agency.

Also view the campaign video here.

MASA is a project of the government of Israel, the Jewish Agency of Israel, and made possible through the generous support of the United Jewish Communities, the Federations of North America, and Keren Hayesod - UIA.