December & January - UK & Israel For details about this trip or to book Esther for a speaking engagement this winter in London, Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, contact her at myurbankvetch at Gmail dot com.
You might think the answer to this question is easy. I mean, I've invited her for Shabbos dinner so many times I can't count. But if you're thinking she finally said yes to me, your saying that just pushed me over the borderline. In Israel for her extremely well-attended concerts (to feel almost like you were there, see Benji's exhaustive rundown), Madonna, just like any visitor, needed a place for Shabbat. So who's she staying with? Some 'yahu.
Whether you're the world's most famous female pop star, the Prime Minister of Israel, or civilians like the rest of us, wishing you all a Shabbat shalom.
Everyone's favorite scare tactic is back - send a kid on a several-months long program to Israel, or s/he'll probably end up intermarried, or in the words of this ad, "Lost." This comes to you courtesy of the Prime MInister's Office, the Jewish Agency and Masa, which hooks people up with longer-term programs in Israel than a 10-day Taglit-Birthright Israel trip provides.
But what's interesting - and perhaps new in the history of this particular scare tactic, which has been so successful in the US - is that this ad (embedded above thanks to the code I cribbed from the embed over at Jewschool) is in Hebrew, designed to appeal to Israelis' sense of "what is right," and essentially saying, "if you know an American kid, now's your chance to save him or her from intermarriage."
In Ha'aretz, the head of this aggressive campaign, Motti Scharf, said: "Even
though this is an existential problem, the public in Israel is
displaying apathy towards it because the process is slow and not
dramatic, out of sight," he said. "The time has come to put the issue
on the table."(Full article in Ha'aretz is here.)
As a longtime believer in the power of Israel programs to create positive connections to Jewish life and identity, I have seen transformations in friends who have gone on longer-term Israel programs. But I have to tell you, that as an American citizen and - up until almost a year ago - a longtime New Yorker, I can't look at those "missing" flyers without thinking of 9/11 - those flyers, hanging in many locations all over Manhattan and beyond, were at once symbols of hope that someone who was missing was "only missing," and a denial of the reality that most of the missing were actually dead. Invoking that image to refer to people who are not dead, but presumed "lost to Judaism" because they "married out," seems somewhat inappropriate.
This isn't Anatevka, people. If your daughter runs off with a Perchik, or even a Fyedka, don't cut them out. If people are treated as if they're lost to Judaism, they will be lost to Judaism.
You can still send them on a trip to Israel, though.
It's funny because it's true. And what's even funnier is that I was sent the link to this video by my parents. Gotta love the Onion - this broadcast is pitch perfect, capturing the super-sunny morning vibe of the AM talk show, complete with chipper hosts and manufactured banter between them and the expert. Seriously: remember, I've been there myself.
Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids
