Taglit, a company that arranges educational trips in Israel
for Jewish students from the Diaspora, has conducted an
interesting survey: What do Israeli citizens think about the
security situation in Israel? Does the impaired state of
security threaten the well-being and the existence of the
State of Israel, and can they point to other threats to the
peace and future of Israel?
Five hundred and eight people, both men and women, responded
to these "questions of existence," and the results were
surprising: Israeli women tend to believe that national
security problems threaten the future of the Jewish people,
while men pointed to other sources of danger, not necessarily
directly connected to the security situation.
Among younger respondents the answers were more focused: shaky
security headed the list of dangers facing the Jewish people.
Older respondents felt differently.
Respondents' familial status also had a direct impact --
although not a surprising one -- on where they laid the blame:
unmarried men living alone view the lack of security as the
foremost danger, unlike parents and other single people. Of
course lifestyle also had a clear effect on the responses.
People with even a slight connection to Judaism did not point
to the shaky security situation as the leading threat to the
well-being of Am Yisroel.
The survey also showed that assimilation among the younger
generation of Jews in the Diaspora ranks in second place on
the list of potential dangers to the future of ha'am
hayoshev beTzion. In third place was the outbreak of
antisemitism in various countries around the world.
Israel is not the only country whose citizens are losing sleep
over the lack of security as well as physical and spiritual
instability. In the U.S. people are also living in fear day
and night.
Kali Balkali is a famous dream researcher in San Francisco,
and the findings she manages to extract from the deep waters
of her patients' dreams are of far-reaching significance at
her prestigious clinic for dream interpretation.
A special study conducted by Balkali revealed that Republican
supporters were at least three times more likely to have
nightmares as Democratic voters.
Balkali attributes these surprising results (which she claims
are unbiased) to the fact that people on the Right are very
alert to dangers prevailing in the world today, and look for
ways to defend themselves against these dangers. "People with
left-wing leanings tend to believe more in utopia," the
researcher noted in the San Francisco Sleep Clinic's
scientific journal, which is how she explains how only 18% of
Democrats suffer from nightmares.
