AlterNet: Israeli Government Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

Israeli Government Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

By Jonathan Cook, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2009.

Israel has launched an advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.




The Israeli government has launched a television and Internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.

The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as "scare tactics," are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young Diaspora Jews by encouraging their move to Israel.

The campaign, which cost $800,000, was created in response to reports that half of all Jews outside Israel marry non-Jews. It is just one of several initiatives by the Israeli state and private organizations to try to increase the size of Israel's Jewish population.

According to one ad, voiced over by one of the country's leading news anchors, assimilation is "a strategic national threat," warning: "More than 50 percent of Diaspora youth assimilate and are lost to us."

Adam Keller, of Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group, said this was a reference both to a general fear in Israel that the Jewish people may one day disappear through assimilation and to a more specific concern that, if it is to survive, Israel must recruit more Jews to its "demographic war" against Palestinians. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/world/142478/israeli_government_ads_warn_against_marrying_non-jews_/

At least among the people I know, virtually all the kids of mixed marriages end up being raised Jewish, no matter which parent is Jewish.

if that person was in love, than I would tell a gay person "No, you can't marry the person you love, you have to find someone of the opposite sex and marry that person."

I know some people would not see the two situations as equal, but I do. In both, you're telling someone they should not marry the person they love.