With national elections less than two weeks away, political campaign videos are much in the news. A few days ago Noam Sheizaf wrote about the Balad party video that was banned, allegedly for mocking Hatikvah, the national anthem. Now Shas, the Mizrachi ultra-Orthodox party that is predominantly Moroccan, is getting some heat for a campaign video that some have decried as racist. In an image that Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth would recognize, the video shows a short, swarthy, curly-haired man standing next to a gorgeous, statuesque blonde under the huppah, or marriage canopy. Behind them stands a stern-looking security…

The following was originally posted on Wish You Orwell. Israel is famous for supporting the documentation of the personal stories of Holocaust survivors: various functionaries often repeat the phrase that since the ranks of the survivors are depleting rapidly, it is vital that their stories be documented for posterity. This, apparently, derives from the strange notion that once the witnesses and the physical evidence of the Holocaust is gone, so would its memory. The Israeli media prominently reports on any damage caused to the concentration camps, and the stealing of the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign from the Auschwitz death camp…