Israelis Don't marry American Jews

**Gun Grape** · 03 Dec 11,, 18:14

Ben, Mothers of Israel have found you out.

Israel: Don

Jewish children reared in America grow up hearing one thing on repeat. It’s like a dull tuning fork in the ear, or an image that sticks in the brain. Marry a Jew. Over and over. As if each time is the first. The subtext is that each of us is responsible for all of us, and if we intermarry, we risk disappearing completely. American Jews preach marrying each other in Israel’s name. The act does the Jewish homeland proud. A friend’s parent once told me that marrying a Jew would be great, but marrying an Israeli would be even better.

Unfortunately for American Jews, and all those niggling parents, it turns out that Israel might not be on our team in this marriage game. A middling and now infamous Israeli government department has forged a peculiar U.S.-based advertising campaign. In a series of videos and billboards, it is discouraging Israeli expats from marrying American Jews and imploring them to move back to Israel.

This conspicuous effort is concentrated in mostly expected locales: Palo Alto, Calif.; New York; Boston; and (less understandably) in Hollywood, Fla. Photos of the billboards taken from cell phones showed up on Facebook. That’s where a Jewish television network first discovered the campaign, which was never formally announced by press release and is mostly in Hebrew. The effort cost nearly $1 million, according to Steven I. Weiss at the Jewish Channel, who broke the story. He believes this is far less than the department’s budget for wooing American Jews to move to Israel.

Not only is Israel’s clinical-sounding Ministry for Immigrant Absorption telling its citizens whom to marry, it is also beckoning them home.

It’s common and advisable that countries publicly court their departed citizens, especially ones with troubled economies in need of repair. India sends its scholars to the States for an education, then entices them back to work. Ireland encourages natives to travel the world and then return. Most recently, Tunisia is asking back nationals after the spring revolution.

Israel’s once booming technology industry seems to have splintered in the global economic crisis. But rather than antagonizing the minds it did not retain, maybe Israel’s government would do better to find out why Israelis are moving to America in the first place. It’s hard to find clear-cut numbers on how many Israeli expats live in the U.S., but the Jewish Channel reported about 2 million.

One video advertisement features an Israeli girl, Dafna, observing Israel’s memorial day, while her feckless American boyfriend, Josh, looks on dumbly. He is cast as a slobbering puppy who may be lovable but can’t really think. “They will always remain Israelis,” rumbles the voice-over. “Their partners won’t always understand what this means.”

The other video panders by using every culture’s weakness—its children. An American Jewish child is visiting with her Israeli grandparents on Skype. They ask which holiday is represented by the menorah behind them. She shrieks, “Christmas!” and their faces tighten with shame. The message is that we American Jews will tarnish Israelis’ hard-won, all-encompassing Jewish identities by solely being our secular selves.

The ham-handed effort isn’t targeting American Jews, but it is offending them. Outrage has been concentrated in the blogosphere. “I don't think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads,” writes Jeffery Goldberg in The Atlantic. Gal Beckerman, a child of Israeli expats who lives in Brooklyn, writes in The Forward that the ads are most disturbing because they are full of fear.

This public offensive voices what American Jews should already know, and should be angrier about: that many Israeli writers, thought leaders, politicians, and rabbis believe assimilated American Jews are not Jews at all. People who make it their business to say who is and who isn’t a Jew are as old as the religion itself. That paradigm is hardly a useful one. Nobody listens to people who only want to exclude. There are more of us here than in Israel. Questions of Jewishness may not permeate our everyday activities, but maybe that’s Israeliness and not Jewishness at all.

Besides, if there are no Jews here in America, who would be left to plant all those trees?

And this

http://theweek.com/article/index/221...-american-jews

Does Israel have a problem with American Jews?
Benjamin Netanyahu's government unveils an ad campaign urging expats to come home, and some Jews in the U.S. find the message insulting
posted on December 1, 2011, at 11:41 AM
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is trying to woo Israeli expats to come home with an ad campaign that suggests there's something wrong with being Jewish in America, critics argue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is trying to woo Israeli expats to come home with an ad campaign that suggests there's something wrong with being Jewish in America, critics argue. Photo: Pool/Getty Images SEE ALL 44 PHOTOS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has launched an advertising campaign in five U.S. cities aiming to persuade Israelis living abroad to return home. In one commercial, an elderly couple in Israel with a menorah behind them asks their granddaughter in America, via Skype, what holiday she is celebrating. Instead of Hanukkah, the little girl giddily declares, "Christmas!" The grandparents respond with a concerned look. (Watch the clip, in Hebrew, below.) In another ad, the American boyfriend of an Israeli woman fails to understand her sadness on Israel's version of Memorial Day. Is this a perfectly reasonable appeal to expats' patriotism, or a slap in the face to American Jews?

The Netanyahu government is insulting Americans: "I don't think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads," says Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic. "The message is: Dear American Jews, thank you for lobbying for American defense aid ... but, please, stay away from our sons and daughters." Apparently, Netanyahu's government thinks that "America is no place for a proper Jew." That's appalling.
"Netanyahu government suggests Israelis avoid marrying American Jews"

But Israeli identity is different: "This ad is not about Jews, it's about Israelis," says Joel Braunold in Israel's Haaretz. The real message is that "you will always remain Israeli and your partner might not be able to understand what is important to you." In Israel, "the national identity and that of the Jewish people" are fused into one, and reminding expats of that is one way to get them to come home at a time when their country needs them.
"Embracing a hyphenated Jewish identity: in Israel and the Diaspora"

C'mon. There has to be a less offensive way to say this: "It's one thing for Israel to try and convince expats to come home lest they assimilate into a foreign culture," says Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary. But it's quite another to imply that "hooking up with an American Jew will cause them to lose their secular Israeli identity." This strategy reinforces "the divide between Israelis and Americans rather than bridging it."
"Israel ad campaign targeting expats raises troubling questions of identity"

The videos that go with the story

The Christmas one was deleted. The little girls says its christmas vice the idiot parody guy.

**bigross86** · 03 Dec 11,, 18:43

A friend of mine pointed this out to me earlier this week. And people wonder why we're losing the PR war. It's because of idiot moves like this one. The US has the second largest Jewish population, the largest outside of Israel and alienating them is probably the single stupidest thing we can do.

I do agree with them that marrying in the faith is probably the best thing a Jew can do. I don't think that marrying an Israeli Jew is that important. I personally don't think I'd be able to live anywhere aside from Israel, but that doesn't mean there are others that can't. My Israeli sister, and her American husband and their children are doing just fine in New Jersey, thank you very much.

But then again, no one ever really asks me about these things... I swear, governments around the world should be forced to enact the 5 year old rule: One of the advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in any plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

Besides, Gunny, I'm Israeli. I've lived 75% of my life here, I speak fluent Hebrew and I can be just as rude as the rest of them

**crooks** · 03 Dec 11,, 19:24

To be fair I've seen similar sentiments with my own two eyes in Boston about marrying Irish (by which they mean someone who's Catholic and of Irish descent) that kinda bamboozled me still exists. Like 150 years ago when the community had to defend itself from the Know-Nothing (In more ways than one) Yankee pigdogs fair enough, but in the frikkin two thousand-zies?

I sympathise with the argument about kids and wanting to raise them in your culture and traditions (if not neccisarily your faith) but for a government to get involved seems excessive to say the least. I know France has many social programs aimed at getting women to "spread their legs for the fatherland", ie have more kids. It seems Jews simply don't have massive families - perhaps money would be better invested raising the birthrate than trying to steer love.

**Double Edge** · 03 Dec 11,, 19:35

Originally Posted by bigross86

A friend of mine pointed this out to me earlier this week. And people wonder why we're losing the PR war. It's because of idiot moves like this one. The US has the second largest Jewish population, the largest outside of Israel and alienating them is probably the single stupidest thing we can do.

Am wondering what prompted Bibi's govt to do this.

Is there an rising trend lately of Israelis settling abroad, in particular the US ?

I remember asking an Israeli colleague of mine why he wouldn't want his kids to grow up in the relative security of the US rather than risk a potential future security detoriation in Israel. He said Israel was where he came from. Yes, fine but what about all the marginal advantages etc. Same answer. But NYC can be very welcoming for a Jew, you're not going to be missing too much. Same answer.

Another thought i had when reading the articles is we are in a situation today where its possible to keep in touch with the old country on a regular basis and its much more immediate nowadays that its causing coping problems both with the people in the new lands as well as with their extended family back in the old country. The ones in the new country have to integrate whereas the family back in the old country feel they are becoming more foreign. Depending how traditional or orthodox the family is the anxiety can vary. Whereas in the good old days they went abroad, you had a few letters and then saw them once every few years if that so there was less 'intervention' than today.

Would imagine there is a similar sentiment with lots of immigrant communties, though its going a bit far to take out ads to make the point. Its usually done behind closed doors by way of a lecture from the elders.

**Skywatcher** · 03 Dec 11,, 19:51

My Israeli friends said that since Bibi doesn't want them to date/marry Jewish Americans, the only option is clearly to date us gentiles.

**bigross86** · 03 Dec 11,, 19:58

Or move to Israel and marry a nice Israeli Jew. Got any pretty friends of marrying age?

**Skywatcher** · 03 Dec 11,, 21:27

Originally Posted by bigross86

Or move to Israel and marry a nice Israeli Jew. Got any pretty friends of marrying age?

I can ask my proctor if you wish.

She's vegetarian, but no one's perfect.

**Mihais** · 03 Dec 11,, 21:30

Do you get conscripted if you move to Israel to marry Bar Refaeli's nicer twin sister?

**bigross86** · 03 Dec 11,, 21:56

Originally Posted by Skywatcher

I can ask my proctor if you wish.

She's vegetarian, but no one's perfect.

Send us a picture. Vegetarianism can be fixed...

**bigross86** · 03 Dec 11,, 21:57

Originally Posted by Mihais

Do you get conscripted if you move to Israel to marry Bar Refaeli's nicer twin sister?

Depends how old you are. If you're of gun carrying age, get used to green

**Doktor** · 03 Dec 11,, 22:06

Originally Posted by Double Edge

Am wondering what prompted Bibi's govt to do this.

Is there an rising trend lately of Israelis settling abroad, in particular the US ?

I remember asking an Israeli colleague of mine why he wouldn't want his kids to grow up in the relative security of the US rather than risk a potential future security detoriation in Israel. He said Israel was where he came from. Yes, fine but what about all the marginal advantages etc. Same answer. But NYC can be very welcoming for a Jew, you're not going to be missing too much. Same answer.

Another thought i had when reading the articles is we are in a situation today where its possible to keep in touch with the old country on a regular basis and its much more immediate nowadays that its causing coping problems both with the people in the new lands as well as with their extended family back in the old country. The ones in the new country have to integrate whereas the family back in the old country feel they are becoming more foreign. Depending how traditional or orthodox the family is the anxiety can vary. Whereas in the good old days they went abroad, you had a few letters and then saw them once every few years if that so there was less 'intervention' than today.

Would imagine there is a similar sentiment with lots of immigrant communties, though its going a bit far to take out ads to make the point. Its usually done behind closed doors by way of a lecture from the elders.

Your friend seems to be a minority.

Google "Yerida" (opposite of Aliyah)

Some 140,323 people living in the United States today were born in Israel, up from 109,720 in 2000. Of the Israelis living here, 90,179 have U.S. citizenship and 50,144 do not.

Full story: Israeli population in U.S. surges, but exact figures hard to determine | JTA - Jewish & Israel News

**Double Edge** · 04 Dec 11,, 02:51

Originally Posted by Doktor

Your friend seems to be a minority.

Perhaps but Ben has said the same too. Difference being he's got a US passport already. So if things go south he's got a plan B. Maybe the people in your link are also working on the same.

A cousin of mine took ten years to become a US citizen, i'd imagine an Israeli could pull it off in less than half that time. The line (if there even is one) is bound to be a great deal shorter.

Now the question becomes do these Israelis still want to stay in the US or go back.

The rules are difficult in the US to marry a foreigner, if you're a green card holder but easier if you're on a work visa or already a US citizen. They want you to go native instead of carting somebody over from the old country. But this poses a problem because you're likely to get a better deal back home than in the new land. Not always but on average. For a native to go with a foreigner means they were unable to get a better local partner.