Nonetheless, it's incredible.
A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counselors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and "rescue" them.
The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate -- and little discussed -- initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.
In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls. . . .
In 2004, posters sprang up all over the northern town of Safed warning Jewish women that dating Arab men would lead to "beatings, hard drugs, prostitution and crime."
Safed's chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, told a local newspaper that the "seducing" of Jewish girls was "another form of war" by Arab men.
Both Kiryat Gat and Safed's campaigns were supported by a religious organisation called Yad L'achim, which runs an anti-assimilation team publicly dedicated to "saving" Jewish women. . . .
The degree of general opposition in Israel to interracial marriage was suggested by a government-backed television ad campaign earlier this month that urged Israeli Jews to inform on relatives abroad who were in danger of marrying a non-Jew. The ads were hastily withdrawn by surprised Israeli officials after many US Jews took offence.
One of the commenters said: 'You gotta love how Israel keeps digging itself deeper into irony.'
Me, I don't know what to say.
8 comments:
Gord forbid that love would replace hate!
Seducing Jewish girls is another form of war? Wow!
Better watch out fern hill, this kind of crazy talk against the State of Israel might invite the wrath of a certain NP columnist.
Good grief.
Routine stuff unfortunately. Here's some more.
The Education Ministry on Sunday announced it would cut funding for three state-religious schools in Petah Tikva, after they refused to enroll Ethiopian students.
The three private ultra-Orthodox schools in Petah Tikva, Darkei Noam, Lamerhav and Da'at Mevinim have been persistent in their refusal to enroll 100 students of Ethiopian origin.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111077.html
Try being a single non-Jewish foreign woman who, after touring Israel for a month, attempts to board a plane at Ben Gurion.
Better set aside an hour more than a guy may need. That's because they grill you and grill you and grill you, go through your luggage sock by sock, etc. -- all because, reasonably enough, they worry about bombs.
But they seem to worry about women carrying them -- or at least they did when I was there 10 years ago -- because we single girls are looking for our Valentino/Sheik fantasy boy.
Fortunately, my friends there had prepared me so I had a bunch of copies of the Star with my column and photo byline, just in case.
After being made to answer the same questions rephrased 100 ways 100 times, I lost my patience and leaned across my splayed-open luggage and looked the security woman right in the face and said: ''Miss? I make $xxxK a year. I can afford to travel business class. I own my own house. I am xy years old. I've been married and divorced twice. I was a journalist before you were born. Do you think I am stupid enough to fall for some would-be terrorist who asked me to bring home a ticking clock to his Grandma in Toronto?''
That was it. She helped me pack up. She let me go through.
On the plane next to me was a woman -- a major company VP -- who had been strip searched just because she had admitted going to Bethlehem during a 5 day business trip. (You don't admit travelling through the West Bank if you want to get through security in less than an hour.)
This woman was so obviously gay too.
Anyway, those Arab guys must be awfully seductive to be leading those Jewish girls astray.
Mind you, if the YouTubes of the violent and yelling men I've seen are any indication of the pickings at the settlements, I don't blame them.
It sounds 99 different kinds of wrong to me fern hill, but based on my personal knowledge of local history where Francophone daughters were ejected from their families and shunned for marrying boyfriends of Irish, Haïtian, Jewish, Italian, Lebanese or Vietnamese ancestry, it's probably correct.
Love as an act of war...who'd of thunk? Next up: Lebensborn à la Israel. Because the enemy always sneaks in through a woman's vagina. Good gawd!
Hi Antonia Z, I thought I had it bad when I got stopped by the cigarette cops in Germany after I crossed an un-manned path from the Czech Republic.
BTW, was the woman sitting next to you on the plane a BFF of BF?
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