Orthodox ad campaign seeks to influence the Israeli public

JERUSALEM, Jan. 20 (JTA) — On billboards, buses and in full-page newspaper advertisements, Israelis are being introduced to a new movement with a pro-Orthodox message on the conversion bill conflict. The campaign, which has support from some secular individuals, is an effort to get a pro-Orthodox message across to an Israeli public that has grown increasingly frustrated with religious coercion. The advertising campaign echoes a similar one in the United States, where a group spearheaded by the fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel of America has launched a $2 million campaign to explain its opposition to the introduction of religious pluralism in Israel. Both campaigns come as a government-appointed committee of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform representatives is trying to reach a compromise regarding conversions in Israel. Reform and Conservative rabbis currently have no legal authority to perform conversions in Israel. But while the campaigns in Israel and the United States run under the same name — Am Echad (One People) — a spokesman for Agudath Israel in New York said there is no connection between the two. “There is no connection at all except that we’re fighting on the same side,” said Rabbi Avi Shafran, an Agudah spokesman. In Israel, one of the newspaper ads proclaim that “250,000 foreign workers want ‘quickie’ conversions.” Playing on Israeli fears that a flood of foreign workers applying for citizenship could strain the state’s coffers, it goes on to ask readers if they agree. The ad goes on to discuss “the danger threatening us” if Israel allows groups other than the Chief Rabbinate, be they ultra-Orthodox sects or Reform Jews, to perform conversions. A woman answering the Tel Aviv number in the ads provides a news release from Am Echad, which says it is a “Movement for the Unity of the People,” an apolitical movement set up by secular and religious Israelis. The group says it recognizes the right of every Jew to live as he or she pleases; however the entry ticket to the Jewish people must be according to the Orthodox interpretation of halachah, Jewish law. One of four individuals listed on the news release is Arieh Zaritsky, a professor of genetics and bacteriology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “Why should we institute other types of conversions when Orthodox conversions are recognized by all of the Jewish people?” asked Zaritsky, who is also known as a founder of a group of secular backers of the Orthodox National Religious Party. Zaritsky claims his ad-hoc group has as many as 100 supporters, but he says does not know who is funding the advertising campaign. “I have no idea where the money comes from, and I don’t want to know,” he said. The public relations office handling the campaign also does not say who is footing the bill. And Moti Moral, a Tel Aviv advertiser responsible for the campaign, did not return several calls. Rabbi Uri Regev, director of the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center, said his group carried out a comprehensive survey of the campaign in Israel, and estimated it would cost $700,000 to fund. “This is a fictitious movement — it doesn’t exist,” he charged, saying that their message implying that 250,000 foreign workers would get phony conversions if liberal rabbis are recognized is false. “The only quickie conversions we know about have been done by Orthodox rabbis,” he said.