Remember the ads encouraging Israelis living abroad to return to the Israel? They were run by the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and were designed to remind Israelis of the dangers of life in the United States - depicting, amongst other scenes:
The ad shows a young girl on her mother’s lap, video-chatting with her grandparents, who live in Israel and who are pictured with four candles burning brightly on a menorah behind them.
When the Jewish grandmother asks the child what holiday it is, she replies “Christmas!” instead of Hanukkah; the joy drains from the grandparents’ faces as they turn to each other in disappointment.
The ads have now been pulled and the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption - with an apology issues to American Jews who may have been offended. According to this CNN report the Prime Minister himself ordered them removed.
“The prime minister’s office knew nothing about these ads,” Oren said. “They weren’t brought to the prime minister’s office for approval, we had no knowledge of them, and as soon they were brought to my attention, I brought them to the prime minister’s attention this morning, and he immediately ordered them brought down.”
There has been a lot of criticism of these ads and much debate as to whether they were at all effective - it appears this has reached all the way to Jerusalem and that the Israeli government is listening to the diaspora.
Here's a link to The Troubador's diary discussing the controversy.