57 percent of seculars don't mind son marrying non-Jewish immigrants
Thirteen percent of religious people say they do not regard assimilation as a problem, as long as the partner has Israeli citizenship
The survey, conducted by Ynet and the Gesher organization, found that 31 percent of Israelis would try to convince the future partner to convert, 28 percent would do anything to try to stop the wedding, and five percent said they would sit shiv'ah, as if the child were dead.
Among secular Israelis, 57 percent would have no problem with their son marrying a non-Jewish girl. Twenty-seven percent would try to persuade the bride to convert to Judaism and 16 percent would try to stop the wedding.
As for the Orthodox population, 57 percent would do whatever they could to prevent the couple from marrying, as would 71 percent of the Haredi public.
One surprising finding was that 13 percent of religious people said that they did not regard it as a problem, as long as the bride had Israeli citizenship.
There are 309,000 immigrants to Israel who are not Jewish according to the halachah, the Jewish religious law, living in Israel following the large wave of immigration from the Former Soviet Union.
Forty-one percent of secular Israelis said that if these non-Jewish immigrants were to assimilate into Jewish-Israeli society it would only make the Jewish nation stronger. Only 27 percent said it was a terrible mistake that would be evident in the next generation.
