Jews who don’t marry Jews

How to be a good Jew:

Rumored wedding bells for Bar Refaeli and Leonardo DiCaprio may ring true or false, but… these are already being muffled… by controversy.

“It is not by chance that you were born Jewish,” wrote Baruch Marzel in a letter… he sent Refaeli through her mother (and that…  promptly appeared in the press).… “Your grandmother and her grandmother did not dream that one of their descendants would one day remove the family’s future generations from the Jewish people. Assimilation has forever been one of the enemies of the Jewish people.”

Marzel, a well-known… stalwart among Israel’s ultra-nationalists, appealed to Refaeli on behalf of an organization named “Lehava.” In Hebrew, this means “flame:; it is also… the Hebrew… acronym for “Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land.”

Supermodel Bar Refaeli… is one of Israel’s most successful “exports.” But with fame comes responsibility — and now… an Israeli… organization is… beseeching Refaeli not to wed Leonardo DiCaprio — out of a responsibility to future generations.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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