The Politics program on Channel 1: 53 percent of the Israeli public believe in superstitions

In the Israel of 2006, rational thinking recedes in favor of mysticism, sorcerers, folklore and superstitions. Prof. Oz Almog from Haifa University: "The problem with us is that over the years this ignorance has been legitimized"

The program Politics on Channel One reported this evening (Tuesday) that the majority of the Israeli public believes in sorcerers and the evil eye. The host of the program, Oded Shahar, said at the opening of the discussion on the subject that data from a study that examined the attitude of the Israeli public to science and technology shows that more than half of Israelis believe in superstitions, 53% to be exact, an increase of 25% from the previous decade, so that when technology is at its peak of development people believe in amulets and rituals mystical. Shahar did not use the name of the authors of the study.

This is what the State of Israel looks like in 2006 and if it wasn't so sad it could be funny. The program was hosted by Yitzhak Mizrahi, owner of the web site Beit HaMokhlot (which, unlike sites such as the one you are browsing at the moment, which is fighting mysticism, is probably not satisfied with just covering the storage costs) which is sold through the Kameot website and even featured in the program. He gave an almost technical interpretation to the folk concept of the evil eye: a negative energy burst with a hint of hatred that is cast upon someone with a word or a look. Another participant who believes in mysticism is actually a doctor - a radiologist by profession, Dr. Corinne Janko, who claimed that Mizrahi's amulets helped her progress at work. Shmuel Ben Atar, an ultra-Orthodox radio personality who also believes in the evil eye, says that in his yeshiva he banishes the evil eye by pouring boiling water and lead on the patient's head. According to him, two ministers spent eight hours in his yeshiva to remove the evil eye from them.
Half a billion shekels in Kabbalist's private account

For the sake of balance, some of the defenders of rationality in Israel were also invited to the program. Journalist Yossi Bar-Moha, author of the book "Kedushim Ltd" says that this phenomenon generates over half a billion shekels a year. This is a phenomenon of charlatanism, first-rate fraud, idolatry. There is a cheating method here. It is against religion. This phenomenon causes public funds to be stolen. People come to Leph Lehm when they go to all kinds of charlatans and receive from them all kinds of materials, printed or photographed pages, not even a parchment of an animal. I revealed in the newspaper Haaretz that in the private account of one Kabbalist, Elazar Abuhchira from Be'er Sheva, there is half a billion shekels. What if not charlatans, swindlers and cheats. Most of these people live in luxurious villas and have luxury cars. If there is no quackery here, what is here?

Prof. Oz Almog was asked if this is charlatanism or simply folklore? And he answered: This is charlatanism that has become folklore. There is nothing to add to what Yossi Bar Mocha said. He is absolutely right. The problem with us is that over the years this ignorance has been legitimized. There is a full correlation between the level of education and the tendency to believe all that nonsense. We are all weak. Human beings are weak and this industry exploits the weakness. The question is how the state fights it, and it fights it first of all through education. This is a very big failure of education because it is easy to explain to a person why it is easy to mislead him, what the noises are, why he got hung up on those beliefs. I look at the same doctor. It is easy to explain why it helped her. We know scientifically that faith heals. Even a placebo could have cured her, and the problem is that not only the education system has failed, but also the media. Not only does the media not condemn the phenomenon, but it also glorifies those charlatans and puts them on the same level and sometimes more than scientists. When a doctor heals he doesn't get headlines. When it is accepted by some kind of coincidence that can be proven with a simple probability that is healing, it gets headlines.

Advocate Yoram Sheftel, I use the phrase "without the evil eye" in Hebrew and Yiddish. I can easily reconcile being a non-believer with going to synagogue. There is a cynical exploitation of the phenomenon that in every society there are twenty percent of people who are either poor or in hardship. In a company of millions it is hundreds of thousands. The fact that 53% believe it means nothing. 70% believed that Oslo would bring peace, 70% of Polish Jews voted three weeks before the outbreak of World War II that they should not leave Poland because it is the best place for Jews. The survey has no meaning. It has been proven countless times that a majority of the public can believe at a certain time in something that turns out to be nonsense. There are hundreds of thousands of people who turned to the help of amulets and spells and remained in the same situation and even worse. No one hears about them.
Chairman of Shinio Ron Levintel who participated in the program said that even Maimonides warned against these phenomena because it is idolatry. "The fact that 53% of the public believes in this nonsense is really unfortunate. There is a continuous exploitation of people here, especially during times of distress. The most heart-wrenching thing is to see people whose relative is missing and they leave the police station and go to Itzetgenin one after the other and these things cost a lot of money. It's true that people go to natural beliefs themselves, but the ones who profit from the whole story are the same x-rays and fathers who give people water from the tap or a kiss and get a lot of money for it. You see an old man sitting on a throne, standing before him are 20 idlers who live off him. The problem is that people are being robbed of money."