[For report from IDI on the poll:
www.idi.org.il/sites/english/parliament/Pages/Whoarewe.aspx ]

Poll: Most Israelis see themselves as Jewish first, Israeli second
Israel Democracy Institute releases special survey probing Israelis'
perception of identify, says 94% of Jewish population in Israel believes it
is part of worldwide Jewish community
Kobi Nahshoni YNET Published: 05.08.08, 08:09 / Israel Jewish Scene
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3540049,00.html

Sixty years after the Israel was established as the Jewish state and the
polemic is at its peak - are we Jewish first and Israeli second or vice
versa?

An ongoing study preformed by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI),
published for the first time on Ynet, reveals that 47% of the public sees
itself as Jewish first and Israeli second, as apposed to 39% with consider
themselves first and foremost Israeli.
Numbers

According to the IDI's Guttman Center, which published the data Tuesday, 94%
of the Jewish population in Israel thinks of itself as part of the worldwide
Jewish community - 68% think Jews living in Israel share the same destiny as
those living in the Diaspora.

The majority of the study was bases on an ongoing survey, taken by the
Guttman Center among the Jewish sector in the country.

Those taking part were asked to rate the way they perceived their identity
according to importance, and so 47% said they were Jewish, 39% said they
were Israeli, 10% based their identity according on their religious
affiliation and 4% according to their ethnic denomination.

A closer look at the religious sectoring showed that the more devout the
sector - the stronger the Jewish definition: Some 78% of those identifying
themselves as haredim and 73% of their religious counterparts chose the
Jewish persona over the Israeli one, with 0% and 16% (respectively) choosing
to define themselves as Israelis.

Among those who said they were traditionalist, 55% saw themselves Jewish and
35% as Israelis. Within the secular sector, 49% said they saw themselves as
Israeli first and 34% said they were Jewish first - Israeli second.

As for the Arab sector, the polling data showed that the majority of Israeli
Arab see themselves as Palestinian or as Arab, and only a minor percentage
of the sector see themselves as Israeli: Forty-five percent said they were
Arab, 24% think of themselves as Palestinians, 19% define themselves by
their religious affiliation and only 12% said they were Israelis.

The second part of the study takes a closer look at the current data in
comparison to similar surveys taken in 1991 and 1999.
The data showed that the overall feeling of belonging to a "greater
community" among Jews has remanded unchanged despite a certain decline in
the belief in a common destiny with Diaspora Jews.

The Guttman Center goes on to quote a poll taken in 2007, which said that
76% of Jews living in Israel felt they shared the same destiny as their
brethren abroad; 2008's poll pegged the number at 68%.