Interesting and totally weird but if this degenerates to blond jokes, I’m out of here.

Posted by: beq | Apr 14 2006 1:38 utc | 3

Okay, I read the full post now. If she’s going to bed hungrey, it must be because her family is engage in the war on Christmas so they’re putting bullets before margarine.

Posted by: christo | Apr 14 2006 1:53 utc | 5

i googled that thanks to pb’s suggestion. i have friends celebrating passover tonight w/ seders so i’m holding off being critical out of respect for my jewish friends, even tho they don’t respect israeli policy. this probably makes no sense but not being a religious person (spiritual tho) i tread lightly around holidays, avoid them, xmas, yuk etc.
wonder how malooga is doing. i have heard from him. he’ll be back.

Posted by: annie | Apr 14 2006 4:50 utc | 7

i don’t think that’s the point as i read it jr.
the point is that the article it accompanied, which b screen shot, implies if one wants to donate to the palestinians, the topic of the article, you click the link. blond or not, but there might be more sympathy towards the blond girl given the readership. are you a palestinian JR?
to use the plight of the palestinian children to garner donations for israeli children,is that not a bit deceptive?
perhaps your children could be related to them. so what? why wasn’t the advertisement linked to an article about the plight of these hungry israeli children? why was there no url to direct the reader w/sympathies to the topic provided?
would you have made the same choice as an editor. does it represent integrity?

Posted by: annie | Apr 18 2006 2:21 utc | 9

The point wasn´t about the ad placement. Those are automaticly by ad-servers. Some websites manage to prevent such ironic ad placement, some don´t. It is quite ironic though.
The point is that the picture of a blue eyed blond girl (even more so with digitally enhanced blue eyes) is a typical “Aryan race” picture.
If you check the website of that organization it shows not one picture of a kid with such feature, but mostly kids with more semitic feature, dark hair, dark eyes.
Two points:
1. Whoever decided on the picture, must think that the potential donators react more to a girl with ayran features than to one with other features. (Such a decision is done in group processes and with some testing. No picture in advertising is by chance.)
2. JR says “the target audience of the ad – observant Jews – ..”. Maybe they are but then I wonder even more about that picture or why is there a positive reaction to it in the “target audiance”.
3. But maybe the picture is targeted to the American evangelical right. If the target was “obervant jewish”, why not write Passover instead of holiday? Why use a girl with aryan features?
For those hungry children in Israel I suggest to reflect this:
No one knows full cost of Israel’s settlement ambitions

Vice Premier Shimon Peres estimates Israel has spent about $50 billion since 1977, when the hard-line Likud government took over from his Labor party. Other former finance ministers and government officials don’t discount a price tag — commonly floated but never documented — of $60 billion.

Plus the “wall” costs about $3.5 million a mile. But maybe that money is “well spend” with all the land robbed through it.
It could be used to feed kids though.

Posted by: b | Apr 18 2006 16:26 utc | 11

@JR
Not interested in fighting with you here (or anyone else, anywhere), but unless you have a this girl’s genotype printed out in front of you, you are being every bit as speculative as Bernhard is.
Not only do I have a “long nose and high forehead” myself without having a single Jewish ancestor, I have a background in physical anthropology which tells me that even a general assessment of a person’s ancestry based solely upon their phenotype is beyond worthless; it’s sheer propaganda. To say this girl is obviously a “Russian Jew” (a fairly meaningless statement given the topographical expansiveness and genetic diversity of Russia) based on a single digitally enhanced picture is reactionary twaddle and reveals quite a bit as much about your biases as you are accusing Bernhard.
I’m sorry to hear that you find so much about this site “revolting” and wonder why you feel compelled to continue contributing to it.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 24 2006 5:47 utc | 13

I too found this post revolting, so I didn’t respond. I didn’t feel that b was being rascist, but I also felt that he was misunderstanding the situation and trying to make a connection that simply didn’t exist.
JR is correct in his analysis. If you want to remove the word “obviously” and replace it with “stereotypically,” if that would make you feel better, then fine with me.
As a descendant of Russian and Roumanian Jews, I can tell you that half my family looks like that girl. She could easily be my cousin. Most Russian Jews come originally from a fairly concentrated area of the eastern Soviet Union, what was termed (“The Pale,”“In particular, it was used to describe various defended enclosures of territory inside other countries. For example, the English pale in France in the fourteenth century was the territory of Calais, the last English possession in that country. The best-known modern example is the Russian Pale, between 1791 up to the Revolution in 1917, which were specified provinces and districts within which Russian Jews were required to live. Another famous one is the Pale in Ireland, that part of the country over which England had direct jurisdiction—it varied from time to time, but was an area of several counties centred on Dublin…”), so attempting to rebut JR with references to “the topographical expansiveness and genetic diversity of Russia,” and conflate the look of the stereotypical Eastern Russian Jew with the Tatars or the Uzbeks, who also had some Jews in their midst, is ridiculous.
If you want to talk about the girl’s “aryan” features, you will also note that she has a pale olive, and typically semitic, complexion. This girl will tan very well, as oppossed to the very pale skinned Russians and Slovaks that predominate in Eastern Russia.
In any event, the ad is inserted automatically. Most of the times I have loaded the page I get an ad for “JDATE,” a popular Jewish on-line dating service.
The use of the word “Holiday” is obvious to any Jew at this time of year. Jews are used to getting all kinds of ads like this, playing on the “holiday Spirit,” from all kinds of creepy groups, during the Holidays. I get them all the time, and immediately throw them in the trash. Most of the time they come from very orthodox sects who attempt to raise money from secular Jews by playing on their guilt at no longer being observant, sort of implying that they are “real” Jews, dedicated to perpetuating the religion and keeping it alive. All this is hooey, of course, but it is very effective marketing. And, of course, the Holidays are the best time to draw “lapsed”, or non-observant, Jews back to the fold. All of this, as JR states, is obvious to anyone who is Jewish. I never realized how opaque it can be to anyone who isn’t Jewish.
I’m not sure what the breakdown is of Haaretz online’s English-reading audience. But I would suspect that this ad is also tailored to the large secular Jewish communities in LA, NY, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, and elsewhere.
It is important to note that Israel now has the most economically stratified society of any developed nation, when 40 years ago they had the most egalitarian.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 24 2006 14:36 utc | 15

P.P.S. By the way, there is a reason why she is portrayed as blonde, and blue-eyed. The Jews are split predominantly, into two great sub-groups: The Sephardic, who fled the Spanish Inquisition to the Moslem counties of North Africa and the Middle East; and the Ashkenazi, who’s identity originated in the Rhineland, and later migrated east, through Germany, Poland, Russia, and Eastern Europe. Although there are blonde, blue-eyed Sephardic Jews (I went out with such a woman whose family came from Morrocco and settled in Toronto. Also my step-mom, whose family comes from the Isle of Rhodes, is red haired and blue-eyed.), it is much more likely that a girl, such as the one in the picture, is Ashkenazi in origin, and hence, a recent immigrant from Russia.
Israel is a very class conscious society, and these differences in country of origin, and subsequently,appearance mean a lot there.
Again, all of this is instantly obvious to anyone who is Jewish, or literate in Jewishness. There is no subterfuge, or “alternate reading” of the text or narrative.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 24 2006 15:06 utc | 17

Bernhard claims that she was chosen because of her Aryan features. He insinuates that the observant Jewish advertisers chose an Aryan-looking girl because the observant Jewish target audience would be more likely to respond to an Aryan-looking child than to a child who resembles their own children. Jews want to be Nazis, Bernhard implies.
Note that Bernhard asks, “But then I am wondering how many blond haired girls with blue eyes are part of their constituency.” Is this a genuine question? Of course not. It is snark. He is saying, out of ignorance, that there is no such thing as a blond Jewish child. He knows nothing about the most important social movement of the last 25 years in Israel- the in-migration of Russian Jews- and he does not care to find out.
You seem to know me quite well.(/snark)
My thinking was much different.
As Haaretz is a more liberal paper, I never thought the ad-target audiance were observant Jews. I didn´t imply this either.
Actually I thought one part of the ad-audience and target were American Christians and the other part secular American Jews. I still do so.
– The reference to “holiday” could be Easter and Passover. Each person will read this according to its own religion.
– Blond/blue eye figures consistently test better in advertisment to “western” audiences than any other type.
– I did check that groups website and though they have a lot of pictures of kids, non has the features like the kid in the ad. That was the base for my “constituency” remark.
I tried not to imply in my post, but to ask and to tell the weird feeling I actually had when recognising that ad. I don´t have an adjective for that ad, (maybe frivolous?), but I found it more “lying” than other ads for such organisations.
Obviously, I failed to transport that in my words.
As for russian immigration to Israel. I am well aware of that and of the political and social consequences of that for Israel. (BTW: Since the early 90s 200,000 Russian Jews migrated to Germany, some blond/blue eyed included.)
Calling me ignorant doesn´t help the argument.

Posted by: b | Apr 24 2006 15:12 utc | 19

Anonymous at 11:14:12 AM above was me. Ugh. Been a long day.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 24 2006 15:21 utc | 21

To continue flogging this non-reactive mule 😉
Actually I thought one part of the ad-audience and target were American Christians and the other part secular American Jews. I still do so.
Right-wing American Christians, if they were to go straight to the country-of-origin to get their news about Israel, which I doubt they would, would go to either the Jerusalem Post or israeliinsider online — right-wing websites whose views about Israel jibe with theirs. Haartetz represents the extreme left of mainstream Israeli thought. It is far more “liberal” then any paper in the US — the LA Times for instance. For that matter, we no longer have a left-leaning mainstream American daily.
I don’t read Haaretz frequently anymore, but I used to read it daily at the beginning of the second intifada. What is notable is that the diversity of views represented, particularly in opposition to official government policies, far exceeds the range to be found in any American paper. The work of reporters and commentators like Amira Hass, Akiva Eldar, and Uri Avnery, among others, is commendable and often exemplary. They are far more critical of their government’s policies (in Israel, vis-a-vis the Palestinians; in the US, vis-a-vis Iraq) than any major reporter, with the possible exception of semi-retired reporter Helen Thomas, and commentator Ted Rall, in the US. There is essentially no dissent about the very illegitimacy of invading Iraq in the US press.
So, I doubt that many US Christians, particularly supporters of the policies of the state of Israel, visit Haartez often.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 24 2006 18:43 utc | 23

Alright, now you got me looking at, and analyzing, this ad. There is definitely something strange about the photo. Her face could be several years older than her body. There is an almost licentious quality to her direct gaze back at the camera. There is definitely something creepy going on between the girl and the camera. It is almost like kiddie porn, and quite chilling the way her image has been appropriated.
Let me quote from John Berger’s excellent Ways of Seeing. Here, he is commenting about how the image of a woman differs from that of a man in western representative art. For “woman” just substitute “young girl,” as we see in the photo above.

By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste — indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of woman has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being split inot two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continuously.
And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.
She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.
Men survey woman before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. To aquire some control over this process, women must contain it and interiorize it. That part of a woman’s self which is the surveyor treats the part which is the surveyed so as to demonstrate to others how her whole self would like to be treated. And this exemplary treatment of herself by herself constitutes her presence. Every woman’s presence regulates what is and is not ‘permissible’ within her presence. Every one of her actions — whatever its direct purpose or motivation — is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated. If a woman throws a glass on the floor, this is an example of how she treats her own emotion of anger and so of how she would wish it to be treated by others. If a man does the same, his action is only read as an expression of his anger. If a woman makes a good joke this is an example of how she treats the joker in herself and accordingly of how she as a joker-woman would like to be treated by others. Only a man can make a good joke for its own sake.
One might simplify this by saying: men act and woman appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object — and most particulary an object of vision: a sight.

Remember again that he is not making blanket sexist statements. He is referring to how the image of the individual is treated by us, not the individual. itself.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 24 2006 19:29 utc | 25

i didn´t see this (I should have): Her face could be several years older than her body.
Figure the shadows – it is a montage – crepy.

Posted by: b | Apr 24 2006 20:12 utc | 27

@Malooga
I know I said I would not butt in here anymore, but we are speaking civilly and talking about the ad again and not each other… and besides, you said:
“There is definitely something creepy going on between the girl and the camera. It is almost like kiddie porn, and quite chilling the way her image has been appropriated.”
That was my only real problem with the thing at any point… after my initial viewing of it, I would scroll past it very quickly because it made me uncomfortable to look at. The “kiddie porn” effect comes from the fact that this pre-pubescent is overly made up. She has a Jon Benet-Ramsey-esque amount of eye shadow on and “come hither” make-up. I just thought the picture was cheaply produced and the makeup artist second rate, combining to produce a picture of a child who screams “I am being exploited” without ever having to part her heavily glossed lips.
I think that, more than anything, accounts for the “creepy” feeling Bernhard got from this. I know it did for me.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 25 2006 2:21 utc | 29

I will look for the book Malooga. your excerpts from it on how women see themselves was fascinating.
I guess it is a whole lot easier being a male in this world.

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 25 2006 6:09 utc | 31