I think that we can thank the "Jewish" Agency for this fiasco.

I looks loke this is a biased study trying to make it look like untraditional and mixed families are almost the norm. Anyone living in middleclass Israel can see that most families are extreamly traditional. They also doden't montion how many of the families where completely non-jewish such as Chistian and Muslim and how that fits into the equation.

So 38% of the marriages are mixed, but on the other hand 58% of these mixed couples follow the Jewish tradition. Seeing as the whole point of prohibition of intermarriage in Judaism is precisely the preservation of tradition, I don't see why it should matter whether one or both parents are Jewish. The desired outcome is being achieved regardless. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the main difference between Diaspora and Israel. In the Diaspora, if you marry out, you are being assimilated by the non-Jewish majority. In Israel, it is the Jews who assimilate others.

What can one expect when the States "Founding Father" gives such a good personal examle to others!! Herzel, married a goya, his son , Hans ( nice jewish name!) wasn't circumsied ! and both his son and daughter who committed suicide are buried in our jewish cemetry (beside their father, now) how I don't know as it is against Halacha! no? With such a precedence , what can we expect from the Lefties who in alot of cases couldn't careless anyway!! The More "brothers & sisters" and their non jewish families were meant to even our the Religious birthrate that our fine politicians want. Yusaf Beilin..to each Israeli (not necessarily Jewish!) family one kid and a pet!! Have you noted in the last 10 years the increase in the number of dogs people walk in the parks in the mornings /evening and who walks them!! and how often your "Mazal" is tested on the footpaths!!

Just think of how much better off we would be of conversions were performed in accordance with real halacha, instead of the present day extremist interpretations.

"The data was gathered from the number of divorces filed, offering an estimate of the number of married couples. The study showed that the number of divorces filed for this population is on the increase, currently 17 percent of all divorces in Israel." What a joke!

Yes this is one of the difference between Israel and the Diaspora. On the other hand in the Diaspora if you don't marry out, there is a great chance to you live a jewish life and somehow feels related to your fellow jews around the world. In Israel you can be an "official jew" without having a clue of what it means.

but of course it is always easier to push blame onto someone else as opposed to taking responsibility ourselves! In this matter of pushing blame onto someone else, we Israelis are gold medal holders!

As #2 says, they leave a lot of statistics out, so the 58 percent will jump out and scare you. They don't say how many single parents are Jewish (most), how many civil ceremonies are between Jew (most), and how many unwed couples are between Jews (most). Plus, within the 10 percent of interfaith couples, they don't say how many have a Jewish mother (aka halachically Jewish kids).

Since the entire data sample was derived from DIVORCE statistics, what it really tells you is that a mixed marriage is more likely to fail than a marriage where both partners are Jewish. This survey results can be applied to generalizations about divorces and failed marriage, but cannot be extrapolated to include successful marriages since this population was not part of the sample. But since this does not fit the agenda of "New Family" they have turned the results upside down.

Real love doesen't care of religion. Discriminating people,that love each other only because they are not Jewish is stupid. Allowing easier convertion CAN be an answer, maybe, for instance accepting also Reform conversion.

>>It found that 60 percent of Israelis oppose these marriages. Seventeen percent said that they are not against such marriages in general but would object to one of their children marrying out.<< I wonder how many of them would be offended to hear a goy say that they wouldn't want their children to marry a Jew.

Reading between the lines proves these statistics as obsolete. Stats on the married population as a whole can not be drawn meerly from those filing for divorce.

You write 3 times [ most ] . How do you know ?

We can all thank the Jewish Agency for all the Russian goyem they have brough here. We also have to thank the Reform & to a lesser extent Conservative movements as well.

The problem is that, as i see it, there SHOULD be a civil marriage and a civil divorce, this is something that a democratic country has the obligation to assure to its citizens. one thing is the defense of tradition, which i defend myself living in diaspora, something completely different is that competences normally reserved to the state are monopolized by the rabinate. it must lead to discrimination

Did you notice that the numbers are not specifically for the Israeli Jews, but for all Israeli families? And need I remind you that some 25% of this country is Arab or otherwise non-Jewish? Careful reading of the article reveals that only 10% are mixed couples, and it likely includes those in which neither parent is Jewish. Once you consider all that, the actual number of JEWISH assimilation becomes truly microscopic- especially compared to the Diaspora figures.

No organized marriage registration outside the Rabbinate ??????? When people get married outside Israel one of the first things they do when they get back is get their ID cards updated at the Ministry of the Interior, usually in order to get mortgages etc. So how on earth can there be no record of these changes? And how can you estimate the number of married people by looking at the number of divorced people? Bullshit.......

If somebody would say that in Israel it would be quite strange yeah. Unless that person is a chr'stian or muslim inhabitant of Israel. I find it very logical Jewish Israeli's oppose non-Jewish marriages. AS IT SHOULD BE. We (in general) live in Israel, not in the diaspora, so marry Jewish (Jews).

The number of non-Jewish immigrants in Israel is greater than 250,000. These are obsolete numbers. Years ago I saw that there were more Russian- and Amharic-speaking non-Jews in Israel.

how could a non jewish russian or ethiopian immigrate to israel??!!!

Why would a Jewish Isaeli man marry a non Jewish girl is one question people should start pondering.

Hi! I am from Poland and come from a mixed family (jewish dad and christian mom). I hold up my parents as the model example of mutual understanding and dialogue. All the ecumenical enterprises, interfaith conferences are meaningless. The interfaith and cosmopolitism are model to achieve peace between the nations. The change should start from the oridinary people.

Gee....and you have counted them all....waaauuuuuwwww

A lot of narcissic jewish israeli princesses marry moslems. No arab girl is married to a jewish boy. Double standard tolerance.

"Fifty-seven percent of intermarried couples in Israel said that they follow the Jewish tradition compared to only 33 percent of like couples in the US." --- > Is that a surprise? USA is a Christian country with christian history and majority, so it's obvious that 70% of christian-jewish couple will raise their children as christians. Same in Israel, 60% of jewish-christian mixed couples raise their children as Jews, according to the majority.

The solution to Israel's problems is for Jews to marry Arab Palestinians. We want the mother to be jewish so that the childrem will be Jews. Therefore jewish women should seek out Palestinian men and marry them. This would make the separation wall unnecessary and defang Arab critiism of israel. We should aspire to be a totally integrated multicultural state like Canada or America. Intermarriage is the solution to all our problems!!

B"H Why is a black man and a white girl pictured? The not so subtle message is that Judiasm is racist when this is not true. Judiasm embraces people of all races, contigent on standards of behavior and proper certification. Shame on YNET!

This is not a new phenomenon. Back 50 years ago we had non Jews in our ulpan and these "shikses" mader no bones about lookinfg for a Jewish husband. Most of them did but most moved to the home country of the non-Jew.