The campaign to attract young males to visit Israel by featuring sexy female soldiers in bikinis represents a new low in government "hasbarah".(education)
Aside from the fact that the soldier posing on her back on a wall looks cachetic to me,the concept of using sex to sell Israel is outrageous.
It is sort of interesting that in this weeks Totah portion, Bilaam after unsuccessfully trying to curse Israel for Balak,suggests infiltrating young women into the Israeli's camp for sex and idolatry,leading to the moral and eventualm physical demise of the Jewish nation.
The Jewish nation has a special holiness that is based on morality, and family values.
The p.r. sex campaign, together with the gay pride parade in Jerusalem, merely confirms how deeply we have stumbled
What is sad, is not the depravity, but a failure on the part of leadership to recognize the status of our mores.
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The threat by the Jewish Agency to call for government recognition of Conservative and Reform conversions,and of the two movements once again bring up two points.
The continuing irrelevancy of a massive bureaucracy that spends millions on meetings and staff,but is devoid of importance and relevance in the Israeli body politic.For example there are no large numbers of Reform or Conservative Israelis.Yey,they dominate the Agency in partnership wih American secular fundraisers.
If the public would know the true cost of bringing delegates to Israel three times per year,as well as taking over a major hotel with meals not only for the delegates but the huge staff,who are moved with their computers but a few blocks from headquarters, in addition to site visits,it would be shocking.
It is time once again for the Orthodox to consider leaving the Agency.Yes they do get some funding,but the inherent bias against the religious stream should no longer be tolerated.
Without the Orthodox movements,the Agency could no longer call themselves the representatives of world Jewry.
The problem is that the orthodox bureaucracy has a sweet thing going, and they are not about to give up the kovod and perqs.
