Poll: Most seculars won't vote for religious candidate

The haredim won't vote for a non-religious candidate, the seculars refuse to vote for a religious or a haredi candidate, and only observant Jews said they were indifferent to the candidate's religious beliefs, a survey conducted by Ynet and the Gesher Institute ahead of the municipal elections Tuesday revealed.

When asked whether they would be willing to support a religious or haredi candidate or party in the local elections in their hometown, 69% of seculars replied negatively. Similarly, 56% of haredim said they would not vote for a non-religious contender.

However, some 89% of religious Jews said they did not oppose a secular candidate, and 57% of observant Jews did not rule out voting

The second part of the survey looked at the respondents' views regarding living in areas of mixed populations. While 38% declared that they did not mind living in a mixed neighborhood, as long as they were free to follow their lifestyle, some 34% said that they preferred a homogenous zone where all the residents have the same social and cultural background.

Twenty-seven of those surveyed said that they deliberately chose to live in an environment that is shared by religious and secular populations, but only 1% expressed a desire to live in a mixed Jewish-Arab area.

'Religious Israelis more open than seculars'

Gesher Institute Director Shoshi Becker said that "the high percentage of religious Israelis interested in living alongside seculars indicates that the Zionist-religious public understands that by choosing to live in isolated, homogenous communities it has damaged itself and its standing in Israeli society, and created a sense of alienation, which it does not want to see deepen."

Becker added that the poll's findings also show that non-religious Israelis feel much more threatened by religious and haredim than the other way around, while religious and observant Israelis showed much greater openness and willingness to live side by side with people who hold different views than their own.

The municipal authorities should encourage the trend of mixed communities, "which can have a positive effect not only on the local council, but also on the state and Israeli society as a whole," Becker concluded.