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World Jewish News
"Kursor" Poll: Repatriates Want to Leave Israel and Do Not Believe in Aliyah
24.03.2009
About quarter of the repatriates from the FSU regret having come to Israel. About half of them would like to leave. The key reasons are the lack of prospects and opportunities for professional realization on the new Motherland.
These are the basic results of the Internet poll, held by the "Kursos" from March 15 to March 22. A total of 3364 respondents took part in the poll, 3324 of whom answered to all the questions.
The reason for conducting this poll became the publication of a national program on stimulating aliyah from the FSU. In particular, 32 million shekels have been allocated for these purposes, which are intended to help integration and solve accommodation problems of the repatriates.
The poll showed that 58% of the respondents do not believe the allocated 32 million to be helpful in bringing repatriates from the CIS, and another 16% called this program a “mockery”.
In general, only 11% of the poll participants are optimistic about the possibility of mass repatriation from the former Soviet countries, while 70% do not believe in such probability.
It is noteworthy that almost 70% of the respondents said they have friends and relatives on the FSU territory, but only 5% of the potential repatriates plan to come to Israel. In the opinion of the poll participants, most of the Jews living in the CIS would like to settle in North America (the USA or Canada). Israel takes the last place in the list of preferences (the same 5%).
Speaking of the reasons which prevent repatriation from the FSU, the respondents gave the first place to the lack of prospects (29%). The next on the list are the lack of professional self-realization (19%), wars and terror attacks (19%), economic problems (6%). The accommodation problem was mentioned only by 4% of the respondents, although the authors of the state program of encouraging aliyah believe this is what prevents mass repatriation.
Only 9% of the respondents believe it is now better in the CIS than in Israel. But if something ever pushes the local Jews to make aliyah, this will be anti-Semitism (32%) and economic crisis (25%).
Apparently, the next aliyah will not be known as "sausage", as only 10% of the respondents believe that the disappearance of sausage from shops can compel the Jews to pack suitcases.
Another group of questions was related to the Law of Return. Despite the ongoing debate in the Israeli society about the changes to this document, a significant part of repatriates are not ready for such actions. In doing so, only 14% of the respondents are in favor of granting the right of repatriation to Israel only to genuine Jews, and only 6% are ready to admit into the country everybody who is willing. (For more details see paragraphs 7 and 10).
We should underline that the promulgated results of an Internet poll do not claim sociological objectiveness – they are just meant to fix the tendency, which is interesting in itself.
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