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The daughter of a Russian-Israeli billionaire secretly paid celebrities to appear in her campaign, according to The Jerusalem Post.
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The campaign promoted orthodox Jewish rules on family purity and forbade menstruating women from having sex.
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The celebrities have been paid up to $14,000 to appear in videos for the religious campaign.
An Israeli billionaire heiress has been criticized for secretly paying celebrities to take part in her social media campaign to promote orthodox Jewish rules of “family purity,” according to The Jerusalem Post.
Ruthy Leviev-Yelizarov, the daughter of Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev, gave thousands of shekels to non-practicing Israeli celebrities to take part in their religious campaign, the newspaper said.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the She’asani Isha project aimed to spread the word about “niddah,” which refers to the status of a married woman who menstruates in Jewish law.
According to Jewish religious laws of family purity, a woman who becomes “niddah” is considered impure. The laws say she is forbidden to touch her husband until her period is over and is cleansed by immersing herself in a mikveh – a Jewish ritual bath.
Celebrities including TV host Yael Bar-Zohar, MasterChef Israel mentor Michal Ansky and reality star Shay Mika have been featured in videos for the She’asani Isha campaign.
In videos, The Jerusalem Post reported that Bar-Zohar and Mika talked about attending mikvahs and observing the rules surrounding niddah.
According to the newspaper, Bar Zohar received up to 50,000 Israeli shekels ($14,103) for participating in the campaign. Ansky received a similar sum, the newspaper reported. And Mika was paid up to 20,000 Israeli shekels ($5,638) for her involvement, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Insiders could not contact Leviev-Yelizarov for comment, but during an interview on Israeli TV, she said celebrities should be paid for participating in such campaigns.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, she said: “Everything that happens today starts with internet stars. It doesn’t matter if it’s a product, yogurt or anything else. We paid them as they should be paid.”
Leviev-Yelizarov is the daughter of Lev Leviev, a Russian-Israeli billionaire who attracted international attention after the “Tinder scammer” posed as his son. Leviev made his fortune as a diamond magnate and was a major financial supporter of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.
Read the original article on Insider