The Israeli government has launched a television and Internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.
Israel, whose Jewish population of 5.6 million accounts for 41 percent of worldwide Jewry, has obstructed intermarriage between its Jewish and Arab citizens by refusing to recognize such marriages unless they are performed abroad.
There is growing concern in Israel that immigration rates have steadily declined since a large wave of 1 million Jews arrived from the former Soviet Union through the 1990s. The absorption figure for last year — 16,500 — was the lowest since the 1980s. It is also believed that there is a growing trend of better-off Jews leaving Israel to live abroad, although figures are not publicized.
