The Sefardi haredi Shas political party continued its race-baiting,
bigoted and divisive election campaign ads by debuting a new television
commercial meant as an attack against Russian immigrants to Israel – and
against the Russian-led Yisrael Beiteinu political party that has
paired with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party to run a
joint list in the upcoming Israel national elections.
Video: Deeply Offensive And Bigoted Shas Campaign Ad Draws Widespread Criticism
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The Sefardi haredi Shas political party continued its race-baiting, bigoted and divisive election campaign ads by debuting a new television commercial meant as an attack against Russian immigrants to Israel – and against the Russian-led Yisrael Beiteinu political party that has paired with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party to run a joint list in the upcoming Israel national elections.
In the ad, a tall blonde woman named Marina – a common Russian name – speaks a heavily Russian accented Hebrew punctuated with Russian phrases.
She dials “* conversion” on a fax machine while standing under a huppah, wedding canopy, with her fiancé.
“Wait, you’re not Jewish?” her surprised Sephardi-looking soon-to-be-husband asks in surprise, as a reply to Marina’s fax – her conversion certificate – comes in.
“Now I am,” Marina happily says.
Then the tall blonde bride tries to kiss her husband, who recoils from her in disgust.
The faxed conversion certificate is meant to suggest a conversion done by the government’s Orthodox-run conversion authority, which was set up to deal with the thousands of halakhicly non-Jewish Russians – most the children and grandchildren of Jews – who immigrated to Israel when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Rabbi Seth Farber heads ITIM, which tries to help secular Israelis navigate through the byzantine maze of the haredi-controled Rabbinate’s bureaucracy – much of it run by Shas-affiliated apparatchiks.
Farber, who is a Modern Orthodox Jew raised in America, sharply criticized Shas accused it of hypocrisy.
“The [Sefardi] Chief Rabbi of Israel [Shlomo Amar], who is a signatory to every conversion certificate in the state of Israel, is allowing the party with which he identifies to belittle people who passed the state conversion system and people who are currently stuck in that system due to its intolerable bureaucracy,” Farber told the Jerusalem Post, noting that Shas’ founder and spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had also approved all state conversions.
“This ad campaign is a slap in the face for immigrants from the former Soviet Union…the Torah mentions 36 times the prohibition of denigrating converts,” Farber told the Jerusalem Post, calling on Yosef to ban the Shas’ ad.
The ad was also criticized by politicians from across most of the political spectrum.
Less than two weeks ago, Shas pulled a racist anti-African refugee video ad from its campaign website.