By Yoav Ribak
Her name is Hila. She is 22 years old and lives in Tel Aviv. She is very attractive, single, looking for a Jewish husband from a good family, and most important - she is a mouse-click away. This is how the banner persuades you, the Jewish bachelor, to enter the Jewish dating site JDate and find the love of your life.
But Hila in the banner is no other than pornographic model Kari Gold, 18 years old, who lives in Hungary. She is, indeed, very attractive, has a boyfriend and is not looking for a Jewish husband at all. Gold says she is not looking for spiritual qualities in men.
JDate is one of the most popular dating sites among Israeli singles and Jewish surfers throughout the world. A considerable part of its success - it claims more than half a million registered members, tens of thousands of whom are paying subscribers - can be attributed to a massive publicity campaign appearing in recent months on all major Hebrew Internet sites in Israel. The ad campaign is specifically targeted at the Hebrew-speaking local market.
However, Haaretz has found that the site's banners systematically use fictitious characters based on pictures of models taken from pornography sites.
