JERUSALEM (RNS) Administrators of an Israeli program that brings Jews to Israel for long-term programs are defending an ad campaign against assimilation and intermarriage that raised the ire of Diaspora Jews.

The 12-day Hebrew-language campaign, which was sponsored by MASA, an initiative of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government, was slated to end Wednesday (Sept. 9).

The half-minute ad, shown on Israeli TV, in newspapers and on the Internet, shows a series of missing-person’s notices replete with photos of young adults with Jewish-sounding names under the word “Lost.” The narrator states that 50 percent of Jews living outside Israel are lost through assimilation or intermarriage.

The ad says that MASA, which has brought 35,000 young adults to Israel, “will strengthen his or her bond to Israel so that we don’t lose them.” It concludes with the words, “A year in Israel, a lifetime of love.”

The ad then asks anyone who “knows a young Jew living abroad” to call MASA. “Together, we will strengthen his or her bond to Israel, so that we don’t lose them,” the announcer concludes.

In the Jewish blogosphere, popular pundits questioned why MASA would appeal to Israelis to help thwart assimilation — the absence of Jewish identity — and intermarriage. Most children with one Jewish parent are not raised Jewish, studies have shown. Others questioned how MASA, which has laid off some employees, could afford the campaign, which reportedly cost between $400,000 and $800,000.

“I wonder if those who fund MASA pay attention to how MASA spends money,” Dan Brown, creator of e-Jewish Philanthropy, wrote in his blog, adding that the organization recently spent thousands of dollars on “fancy catalogues” that went largely unread.

J.J. Goldberg, editor of the Forward newspaper in New York, wrote that “nobody is going to win their hearts (of young Jews in intermarried families) with commercials implying that their parents’ marriage was a form of genocide.”

On Monday, Alon Friedman, MASA’s director of Israel operations, defended the ad campaign. “We understand these reactions,” he said, “but this campaign isn’t meant to encompass the entire Diaspora-Israel relationship.”