Israel: anti-assimilation ads yanked over uproar

JERUSALEM — An ad campaign against Jewish assimilation, co-sponsored by the Israeli government, has been yanked after outraging Jews abroad, an official said Wednesday, laying bare the sometimes fraught relations between residents of the Jewish homeland and world Jewry.

The Hebrew-language campaign was launched by Masa, a joint venture of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency and the Israeli government. It included newspapers ads and TV clips showing mock missing persons fliers emblazoned with Jewish-sounding names and the word "Lost."

Jews abroad saw the campaign as an attack on intermarriage — the common phenomenon of Jews marrying non-Jews.

Statistics show that in the U.S. — home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel — about half the marriages of Jews over the past 25 years have been mixed.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJBdhogt2eShAUr5p4PxR6DF1u4gD9AJU3N82

That took stupidity to a new level.

The whole thing was idiotic - glad they pulled the ads.