Of Virgin Births and Water Bottles
As the Bintel Blog just reported, Israeli humor has already provoked the fury of Holocaust survivors this week. Now it has Christians up in arms, too.
A late-night talk show on Channel 10 ran a sketch jibing Christian beliefs, including the virgin birth and the notion that Jesus walked on water.
According to the sketch, Mary became pregnant at 15 by a classmate. Jesus is cast as obese — always “between diets” making “every meal his last supper.” He always promised that he would start a diet “on Sunday” (the pledge of many Israelis every Shabbat), which is why Sunday is holy for Christians, in the comedians version of events.
Christian clerics held a press conference this week, where declared that they felt so strongly about the sketch that they want the Pope to protest by postponing his visit to Israel, scheduled for May.
Lior Shlein, the host of the show that screened the sketch, has said he will apologize on air.
Israel is in the middle of the worst water shortage in its history. Last year was the fourth year of drought in a row. But it is not until now that any significant change in water usage is discernable, as it is only in the last few weeks that the Water Authority launched an advertising campaign with the slogan “Israel is drying out.”
Compare this sluggish response to the reaction to news this week that there could be a shortage of bottled mineral water due to problems at bottling plants. This catapulted people across the country in to action.
Panic buying of bottled water across the country has begun, and sales are reportedly up by 10%.
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