Israel's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption has created a set of videos intended to convince Jewish expats living in America to return home. The subtext? Marry an American Jew and your children will be lost.
The video advertisements – two of which I will embed (and explain) at the end of this post – reveal in various contexts the "dangers" of living in America and marrying American Jews and non-Jews alike.
The ads are offensive enough that they elicited this surprising response from The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in a piece entitled "Netanyahu Government Suggests Israelis Avoid Marrying American Jews" (emphasis mine):
I don't think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads. I understand the impulse behind them: Israel wants as many of its citizens as possible to live in Israel. This is not an abnormal desire. But the way it is expressed, in wholly negative terms, is somewhat appalling. How about, "Hey, come back to Israel, because our unemployment rate is half that of the U.S.'s"? Or, "It's always sunny in Israel"? Or, "Hey, Shmulik, your mother misses you"?
The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik (if you don't mind me resorting to the vernacular). The message is: Dear American Jews, thank you for lobbying for American defense aid (and what a great show you put on at the AIPAC convention every year!) but, please, stay away from our sons and daughters.
Goldberg is right about the hypocrisy of such an ad campaign given the American Jewish community's lobbying for Israel. And he is also right about Israel's legitimate right to try to lure its expats to return.
However, what Goldberg doesn't treat, and what I see as the most critical issue, is this: the ad campaign by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government is part of a desperate attempt to solve the country's demographic "problem." What problem? Maintaining the Jewish character of the country by maintaining a Jewish majority.
The painful irony? The greatest threat to Israel maintaining a Jewish majority is the occupation of the West Bank and settlement construction on Palestinian lands, two elements propped up and supported by Netanyahu's hawkish governing class.
Instead of crafting geopolitical positions that could bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to agreeing on a two-state solution – such as freezing settlement construction and seizures of Palestinian lands – Netanyahu's government continues to pursue a Greater Israel policy. And such a policy has only one end: a one-state solution.
And a one-state solution, with Israel and the West Bank officially administered as one entity, would create a state without a Jewish majority. Plain and simple.
But Israel's conservative leaders are blinded by ideology. Which is why they instead create offensive commercials imploring those citizens who have fled to return, warning those who don't to, you know, not marry American Jews.
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Video One
In this first video, an Israeli woman returns home with her American partner, who sees a candle and thinks the light is a sign that she wants some action. Little does he know it's a memorial candle for Israel's Memorial Day (יום הזיכרון).
The line at the end is: they will always be Israeli, but their children won't know what that means.
As Goldberg notes, the Ministry that created this add intentionally doesn't differentiate between Jews and non-Jews, and he sees the man in this video, as do I, as representing an assimilated American Jew.
Video Two
This one is easy to understand without even knowing Hebrew. A couple's child is speaking to her Israeli grandparents, who ask what holiday is coming up. Instead of saying, Chanukkah, she says, "Christmas."
The line at the end is: they will always be Israeli. But their children? No.
The unfortunate implication here being: only Israelis can be good Jews.