By Erica ChernofskyBBC Information, Jerusalem

Intermarriage – whenever Jews wed non-Jews – happens to be called a hazard to the future success of this nation that is jewish. So what took place when there were reports that the Israeli prime minister’s son ended up being dating A norwegian non-jew?

The Norwegian day-to-day Dagen a week ago reported that Norwegian Sandra Leikanger and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair are a definite few, to that the office of Mr Netanyahu has answered – in accordance with Israeli news – by insisting they’ve been just university classmates. However the damage was already done.

Leikanger isn’t Jewish, a fact that has sparked outrage in Israel, A jewish country which since its inception has battled to have its Jewish character recognised throughout the world. While Judaism just isn’t a proselytising religion, Leikanger, like most non-Jew, does have the option of converting should she wish to be Jewish.

Intermarriage and assimilation are quintessential Jewish fears and have now been called a hazard to your future survival of this reasonably tiny Jewish country. According to law that is jewish the religion is passed down through the caretaker, therefore if a Jewish guy marries a non-Jewish woman, their children would not be considered Jews.

The possibility that kiddies of a blended couple would keep or pass on any Jewish traditions to future generations is radically diminished. As today’s rate of intermarriage among Diaspora Jews stands above 50%, many are concerned that the world that survived persecution, pogroms therefore the Holocaust could sooner or later perish out of a unique undoing.

The anxiety ended up being expressed in a open letter to Yair Netanyahu by the Israeli organization Lehava, which works to avoid assimilation, in a post on its Facebook page, which warned him that their grand-parents “are switching over within their graves they failed to dream that their grandchildren would not be Jews”.

The matter of intermarriage has mainly been one for Diaspora Jews – the Jews who live outside Israel. The phenomenon has come to light inside Israel, Jews (75% of the population) and Arabs (21%) rarely marry, but with an influx of foreign workers and globalisation of the Israeli community, in recent years.

“Jesus forbid, if it is real, woe is me,” states Aryeh Deri, leader for the Ultra-Orthodox Shas party, to a neighborhood radio station, lamenting the news headlines that the prime minister’s son had been dating a non-Jew. ” I do not like talking about private problems but whether it’s real Jesus forbid, then it is no further your own matter – it’s the sign associated with Jewish people.”

The popular Israeli satirical television show, aired a parody showcasing infamous historical oppressors of the Jews including the biblical Pharaoh and the Spanish inquisitor over the weekend, Eretz Nehederet. The show culminated with Yair Netanyahu’s non-Jewish girlfriend, who they called the “newest existential threat”. She sang of a shikse, a non-Jewish girl, sarcastically crooning that she actually is “worse than Hitler”.

But jokes apart, even the prime minister’s brother-in-law, Hagai Ben-Artzi, spoke away highly on their event, warning their nephew that when he doesn’t end his relationship with Leikanger, it really is as though he is spitting on the graves of their grandparents besthookupwebsites.org/bisexual-dating/.

“From my point of view, if he does any such thing, I personally won’t allow him getting near their graves,” he told an Ultra-Orthodox site. ” This is actually the many awful thing that is threatening and was a threat through the entire history of the Jewish individuals. More awful than making Israel is marriage with a gentile. If this happens, God forbid, We’ll bury myself I do not understand where. I’ll walk within the roads and tear off my hair – and here this might be taking place.”

Whoever’s watched Fiddler on the top, where Tevye says his daughter is dead to him for marrying a non-Jew, knows the matter is definitely an one that is sensitive Jews.

But Dr Daniel Gordis, a writer and expert commentator on Israel and Judaism, says which has changed within the previous few years, particularly within the Diaspora community that is jewish.

Whereas once it had been significantly frowned upon for the Jew of any flow to marry a non-Jew, today, among unaffiliated (no synagogue), non-denominational (those that do not identify with any movement), conservative or reform Jews, it is really not the taboo it once was. The intermarriage prices of non-denominational Jews approach 80%, he claims.

But among Orthodox Jews plus in Israel, it’s still a whole lot more controversial.

“It’s not a racial problem, it isn’t a superiority problem, it is not a xenophobia issue,” he claims, describing that we now have two reasons for the opposition to intermarriage, certainly one of which will be it is merely forbidden in Halacha, or law that is jewish.

“The other thing is that Jews attended to see that the actual only real way that is real transmit effective Jewish identification to their kiddies is in order for them to be raised by two Jewish moms and dads. Young ones raised by one Jewish moms and dad and one non-Jewish moms and dad have significantly more tepid, more delicate, thinner Jewish identities than their Jewish moms and dads did.

“they’ve been statistically prone to marry non-Jews. There isn’t any guarantee, but statistically it’s extremely difficult to produce a son or daughter because of the sense that is same of passion that the older generation has if he is raised by someone who does not share that tale.”

The effect, he adds, is the fact that in America, ” there is a quickly eroding feeling of Jewish dedication, a complete collapsing of Jewish literacy, and a thinning of Jewish identity”.

Therefore Israelis are petrified, states Rabbi Dr Donniel Hartman, head of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jewish studies, because since intermarriage is really uncommon here, when an Israeli marries a non-Jew they notice as if he’s leaving Judaism.

” When you’re a people that are small you lose your constituents it makes you quite nervous. We are 14 million Jews in the global world, that is it,” he describes. ” What’s changed in contemporary Jewish life outside of Israel is that a Jew marrying a non-Jew doesn’t invariably suggest making Jewish life anymore.”

This can be a phenomenon that is new Judaism, and Hartman states Jews must rise towards the challenge.

“The battle against intermarriage is a battle that is lost. We are a folks who are intermarried – the issue is not just how to stop it, but how exactly to reach out to spouses that are non-Jewish welcome them into our community,” he states.

“Our outreach has to be better, our institutions have to be better, our Jewish experiences have actually become more compelling, we must start working much harder.

” surviving in the world that is modern you to be nimble. Things are changing, I don’t know if it is for the even worse or otherwise not, that will depend about what we do. However the global globe is evolving, and we have to evolve with it.”