Noble fight against half-Jews meets setback

Well I'm sure out of the loop! An anonymous commenter has just alerted us to the fact that Oranim leader Momo, he of the "make Jewish babies" refrain,* had to leave Birthright Israel because... they didn't like that he asked participants to make Jewish babies, or that he did so insinuating that it would be all right by him, if not preferable, for those babies to be made by 18-year-olds, with perfect strangers, during the 10-day trip. (See also.) Apparently Birthright also objected to Momo's demand that Jews make aliyah. Which is strange - I don't remember him saying much about Israel in particular, just that he wanted Jews having sex ASAP with absolutely straight-up anyone else so long as that person was Jewish. In fact, I wanted to hear more about Israel. I was ready for all the Zionist propaganda they wanted to throw at me. But instead, it was all about Momo's natalist vision for the Jews.

Ugh, Momo, and everything he stands for. Good to hear his 'Birthright alternative' is failing. To those who care about the integrity of Judaism, otherwise known as strictly following Jewish law, or keeping out ferners, or however you want to look at it, say what you will, but you don't get to be super-specific about Who Counts As A Jew and get to care about numbers. If you want numbers, consider possibilities that have a chance of making more Jews in the world, such as, oh, I don't know, making conversion to Judaism non-impossible, and making it so that once through the conversion process, new Jews don't have to learn that they don't count as Jewish at all according to the state of Israel. These things could happen. Whereas convincing Jewish coeds to start popping 'em out All For the Cause, persuading Jews of both sexes to ignore 99% of the people they meet as potential romantic partners because assimilation is bad, mmkay, these are not practical approaches to anything. Momo, if you want non-observant Diaspora Jews to marry in, your options are either to create a massive new wave of anti-Semitism, such that non-Jews are no longer willing to get within 500 feet of our kind, or to clone Paul Rudd and Natalie Portman (or, for the Portnoys, Bar Refaeli) en masse, and offer them free of charge.

Oh, oh! And I love the comment from a Brooklyn woman, from the Haaretz piece: "'If someone has a non-Jewish partner, that's their problem.'" How... tolerant.

*Lest anyone want the full story of my objections to the Momo method of introducing Diaspora Jews to Israel, click on the Jewish babies tag here, along with here and here.