Osem, the Israeli company that sells essential food products like Bamba and soup almonds, has a new television advertisement for its chicken soup mix.

It's Friday night, and the members of a prosperous-looking family - middle aged parents and grown-up children - are sitting around the dinner table. They are clearly Ashkenazi, and equally obviously secular. (Friday night dinner with the family is an Israeli cultural institution - whether you're religious or not). The elder son, who looks about 25, stands up. He places his hand on the shoulder of his modestly smiling, pretty blonde girlfriend, and says that he has an announcement to make.

"Jessica and I," he says, "have decided that it's time...

Pause. Everyone looks at him expectantly.

"...that it's time for Jessica to learn Mom's recipe for Friday-night chicken."

There's a second of shocked silence. Then tears of joy well up in Mom's eyes. The whole family erupts in a shout of, "Mazal tov!"

Cue theme music, and a picture of Osem's all-artificial chicken soup mix - the one that has all those chemical ingredients with the unpronounceable polysyllabic names.

Osem is a bedrock Israeli company that sells some of this country's best-known name-brand - and kosher - foods. It is not known for its cutting-edge advertising, preferring to appeal to mainstream cultural attitudes. So I'm fascinated to see that their idea of a typical Israeli family includes a son with a non-Israeli, and possibly even (gasp!) non-Jewish girlfriend. Note, however, that Jessica does not open her mouth - possibly to allow Osem deniability (she's not really a goya - she's a nice Israeli girl with eccentric parents who gave her an Anglo name).

Are Anglos finally making an impact on middle-of-the-road Israeli society? Haaretz has an editor-in-chief who is a native of the U.K., the Israeli every-family includes a son with an Anglo girlfriend, and now the new governor of the Bank of Israel is American. What's going on here?

Oh and P.S., for those of you who are wondering why I didn't comment on the sexist aspect of this advertisement, let's just say that I'm...beyond getting worked up by that subject (for now). I'm just delighted that the instructions on my package of laundry soap are no longer written in the feminine case.