But it's Jewish chlamydia!

One aspect of Birthright Israel I found especially perplexing/distasteful was the emphasis on hooking up with a fellow trip participant during those ten days. The anti-intermarriage indoctrination was one thing, but the implicit and sometimes explicit requests to get it on with any-Jew-will-do made it seem as though we were endangered zoo animals - pandas perhaps - who needed to be artificially fused together to propagate ourselves. (Also, it might have been nice if the powers that be accepted that some in the 18-26 range are already in committed relationships and are on the trip for the Zionist propaganda only.)

How this was distasteful is, I think, self-evident. But it was perplexing because it was this full-on embrace, so to speak, of The Hook-Up Culture. Normally, right-leaning adults with an agenda for The Youth discourage casual sex. On Birthright, the idea was somehow that if both people are Jews, whatever happens, however impulsive, is to be celebrated. As though any gonorrhea contracted in the name of keeping the "shiksas" at bay was somehow For A Good Cause.

I was reminded of this by a much-reported story about an Israeli woman who successfully accused a man of rape for claiming to be Jewish to get into her pants. Do the Israeli courts so fear intermarriage that they, like Birthright, make a distinction between "mixed" hook-ups and those only Jews are involved in? Honesty's great and all that, but this is almost as though being Arab - or simply non-Jewish - is being equated with having a sexually-transmitted infection, something one must disclose because of a damaging, potentially life-altering impact on even a one-night stand. I don't know if it's right to think of this as being about anti-Arab racism, though, because it would not at all surprise me if a Western European or North American non-Jewish man went through the same charade, he'd be in the same boat. But I could be wrong.

Given how many Israelis don't even want to live in Israel, let alone diaspora Jews (except, it seems, the French), maybe, maybe, Israel could consider approaching its populationist concerns in ways that aren't so destructive and coercive. When really, what Jews, particularly in Israel, ought to be doing is taking advantage of the fact that this is an era, unlike just about any other in recent memory, when not only are non-Jews interested in marrying Jews, but some are even ready to pose as Jews to get sex with Jewish women. People want in! I'm not saying send out missionaries, but converting in should be both doable and, once done, recognized. I mean, imagine that - make more Jews without resorting to natalism or bizarre hook-up legislation, simply by recognizing the Jews who already exist.