The municipality of Petach Tikvah in reference to Jewish women dating Arabs: “We can’t tell the girls what to do but we can send a psychologist to their home to offer them and their parents advice.” Huh?

Oh, the city also started a city-funded hotline for parents and friends to inform on these Jewish women, who “did not undergo the religious and Zionist education.”

Then why are you sending a so-called psychologist for advice? Send a religious and Zionist teacher, quick!

Are you surprised? You should not be.

Israel only accepts religious marriages in the first place. That means that if two people of different religion or ethnicity want to marry, either one of them converts to the religion of the other, or they have to leave the country to get married elsewhere. Cyprus, anyone?

Check out this website, of an Israeli organization calling for civil marriage in Israel.

I can relate. I’ve been married to my husband twice. The first time the California Supreme Court declared my same-sex marriage null-and-void; the second time the voters passed Proposition 8. This time around the California Supreme Court protected my marriage, but closed the door to any new same-sex marriages in the state. Massachusetts, anyone?

I bet you they do not talk about these pesky problems of civil marriage in the hasbarah campaigns that target the LGBT community. Somehow the theme of marriage equality sounds a bit hollow when even heterosexual couples have trouble getting married because of their ethnicity of religion.

And whatever happened to the law that Uri Avnery had called one of the most revolting laws ever enacted in Israel? The law stated that the wife of an Israeli citizen is not allowed to join him in Israel if she is living in the occupied Palestinian territories. Last I heard, it was under judicial review. I am not sure what happened to it. Maybe the psychologists in Petach Tikvah know.