DI CAPRIO’S JEWISH SWEETHEART AND INTERFAITH EFFORTS IN JERUSALEM

The Times
March 15, 2010
UK

Bess writes: Two Jewish stories caught my eye today: the first, a
positive inter-faith story for once, amid the dearth of reports on
religious groups who take a tribal pride in faith, rather than living
its spirit of love.

In Jersualem, reports Ha’aretz a liberal Orthodox group are campaigning
to stop some Ultra-Orthodox Jews from an unpleasant habit of spitting
on Christians. It’s already been roundly condemned as "a desecration
of God’s name" by the Haredi Community Tribunal of Justice, and a
special meeting was held last month to tackle the problem involving
Christian leaders and Israel’s Foreign ministry.

Incidents – though still occurring – of spitting have now decreased,
though there is still work to be done to eradicate it altogether,
says Archbishop Aris Shirvanian, from the Armenian Patriarchate
of Jerusalem. He’s been spat upon about 50 times in 12 years. A
liberal Jewish group are hosting a lecture today between various
representatives of faith groups in Jerusalem as a step to ending
this altogether.

The group’s organiser, Andrea Katz, 57, felt she had to protest.

The second, lighter story, from the LA Times involves the supermodel
Bar Refaeli (see above) currently dating Leonardo di Caprio, a source
of some concern to Baruch Marzel, a Jewish ultranationalist.

"It is not by chance that you were born Jewish" he told Refaeli in a
letter sent to the model via her mother, that somehow ended up soon
afterwards 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’s appeal was made on behalf of a Hebrew organisation whose
name Lehava is apparently an acronym for "Preventing Assimilation in
the Holy Land" which apparently has a Facebook page in Hebrew that
"provides assistance to Jewish girls in relationships with non-Jews,
especially Arabs." Slightly scary.