Israeli Jews

Israeli Jewish society includes secular, traditional, religious, and ultra-Orthodox communities, with further distinctions shaped by ethnic origin, period of arrival, and religious tradition.[4] Differences between communities can involve language, culture, personal identity, political outlook, and views about the desired character of the state.[4] These categories are not fixed social compartments: communal boundaries can be clear or blurred, and groups change in their internal culture, integration, political representation, social status, and relative population share.[4]

Jewish identification in Israel is not synonymous with religious belief or membership in a denomination.[1] In the 2014–2015 survey, virtually all Jewish respondents identified their religion as Jewish, although roughly half described themselves as secular and one-fifth said they did not believe in God.[1] The survey also included 64 respondents who reported no religion but considered themselves Jewish apart from religion and had a Jewish upbringing or at least one Jewish parent.[1] Overall, 55% of Jewish respondents understood Jewishness mainly as ancestry or culture, 22% mainly as religion, and 23% as a combination.[5]

Strong collective belonging accompanied these different understandings: 93% said they were proud of their Jewish identity, and 88% expressed a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.[5] Most Haredi and Dati respondents considered themselves Jewish first, whereas most Hiloni respondents considered themselves Israeli first.[1] Thus, a shared identification with the Jewish people coexisted with different ways of relating Jewishness to Israeli nationality and religious life.[1][5]

Much of the detailed evidence about these distinctions comes from face-to-face interviews conducted between October 2014 and May 2015 in Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian among 5,601 Israeli adults, including 3,789 Jewish respondents.[1] The sampling frame followed the national statistical population definition, including Jews in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Arab residents of East Jerusalem, but excluding Arab residents of Gaza and the West Bank outside East Jerusalem.[1] Its percentages describe that survey population and period rather than a current population count.[1]

A continuing Jewish presence in the land during premodern times was concentrated in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias.[6] Communities with continuous histories in Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias remain part of the varied historical background of Israeli Jews, alongside the descendants of more recent immigrants and refugees.[3] Modern immigration beginning in 1882, in the context of Zionism, added to a Jewish population of approximately 24,000 in the early 1880s.[6][7] Five major pre-state immigration waves brought more than 400,000 Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, Yemen, and other places to Palestine.[8]

The growth of Jewish society in the land accompanied broader changes in Jewish identity.[9] For many generations, Jewish identity had been largely grounded in religious faith, while nationality and culture became increasingly prominent bases of identification from the eighteenth century onward.[9] Successive migrations to the Land of Israel brought together communities with different inherited traditions, including Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews.[9] Immigration from Eastern and Western Europe, Middle Eastern countries, Russia, and Ethiopia contributed to the formation of Israel's Jewish population.[7]

In 1939, approximately 449,000 Jews lived in what is now Israel, accounting for about 3% of the world's estimated 16.6 million Jews.[2] By 1948, when Israel was established, the local Jewish population numbered approximately 650,000, or about 6% of a worldwide Jewish population estimated at 11.5 million.[2] The new government opened the country to Jewish immigration, and immigration contributed almost 70% of the annual average population-growth rate between 1948 and 1960.[6]

The first years of statehood brought an exceptionally large influx, with about 700,000 Jewish arrivals between 1948 and 1951.[10] Roughly half of the early newcomers were survivors of Nazi regimes, while about half came from the Middle East or North Africa, where Jewish communities faced deteriorating economic and security conditions amid hostility from Muslim majorities.[11] More Jewish migrants entered Israel between 1948 and 1950 than in any comparable period afterward.[11] The influx included nearly entire Jewish populations from Yemen, Aden, Libya, and Iraq, as well as many immigrants from Egypt, Syria, Morocco, and Tunisia.[6]

Organized immigration and rescue operations formed part of this movement.[3] Operation On Eagles' Wings brought an estimated 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel in 1949–1950, and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah brought approximately 125,000 Iraqi Jews in 1950–1951.[3] Nearly 90,000 Jews also arrived from Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt in Israel's earliest years.[3] By the end of 1951, Mizrahi Jews accounted for 56% of Jewish immigrants to Israel.[3]

Further arrivals continued through subsequent decades: about 160,000 immigrants, including North African and Eastern European Jews, arrived in 1955–1957.[10] The Jewish population reached approximately 1.59 million in 1955 and nearly 3.3 million by the late 1970s.[11][12] The Law of Return, enacted in 1950, provided the legal framework for Jewish immigration and citizenship.[10]

Migration from the Soviet Union and its successor states became another major influence on Israeli society.[11] Approximately 375,000 immigrants arrived from the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991, and more than one million people from the former Soviet Union arrived between 1990 and 2000, helping bring the Jewish population to about five million by the turn of the century.[11] More than 600,000 Russian-speaking Jews had immigrated by 1995, and an estimate for 2020 placed Jews of Russian origin at nearly one-fifth of Jewish Israelis.[3]

Ethiopian Jewish immigration included approximately 12,600 arrivals between 1983 and 1985 and another wave of close to 30,000 between 1989 and 1992.[11] Within this broader migration, Operations Moses in 1984–1985, Joshua in 1985, and Solomon in May 1991 brought an estimated 22,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel.[3] By April 2026, more than 3.5 million immigrants had arrived since statehood, approximately 1.68 million of them since 1990.[13]

At the beginning of 2025, approximately 5.8 million of Israel's roughly 7.2 million Jews were born in Israel, while about 1.4 million were born abroad.[2] The foreign-born population included 982,800 people born in Europe or America, 269,300 in Africa, and 135,400 in Asia; these are birthplace figures rather than a classification of the ancestry of all Israeli Jews.[2] An April 2026 CBS release reported, using end-2024 data, that about 81% of Jews in Israel were Sabras, meaning people born in Israel.[13]

Population measures differ in scope.[14] One country profile lists a core Jewish population of 7,212,900 within a total population of 10,065,500, equivalent to 716.6 Jews per 1,000 residents.[14] Its core definition includes people who identify as Jewish without another monotheistic religion, people with Jewish parents who have not adopted another religious identity, converts, and others who declare themselves Jewish even without conversion.[14] The same profile gives 7,373,000 people with Jewish parents, an enlarged population of 7,533,100 incorporating additional household members and people of Jewish parentage who do not identify as Jewish, and a Law of Return population of 7,693,300 encompassing descendants of at least one Jewish grandparent and immediate families.[14]

Other dated estimates use their own categories.[15][16] A 2023 demographic account recorded 7,208,300 Jews in a total population of 9,842,000 and separately counted 554,400 immigrants admitted under the Law of Return who were not classified by religion.[15] Combining those categories produced a broader total of 7,762,700, not a count of people all registered as Jewish.[15] A 2024 core-population estimate placed 7.3 million Jews in Israel within a worldwide Jewish population of 15.8 million, incorporating a technical correction concerning residency definitions.[16]

The combined statistical category “Jews and Others” includes non-Arab Christians, members of other religions, and people without a religious classification in the Population Registry.[13] In April 2026, it numbered 7.790 million within a national population of 10.244 million, alongside 2.157 million Arabs and 296,000 foreigners.[13] On the eve of Rosh Hashanah 2026, provisional figures placed the combined category at 7.828 million, Arabs at 2.173 million, and foreign residents at 304,000, for a total of 10.305 million.[17] Neither combined figure is a Jewish-only population count.[13][17]

Births and deaths, as well as migration, have shaped growth.[11] Natural change has been a more significant driver of overall Israeli population growth than migration since the 1960s, and robust natural growth has been the principal recent driver of the Jewish population's expansion.[11][18] Jewish fertility fell from about four children per woman in 1950 to just over 2.5 in the 1990s, before rising to approximately 3.1 in the period covered by a historical demographic account.[11] Part of that later increase was associated with the growing Haredi population.[11]

Earlier social-survey data showed the Orthodox share of Jewish adults increasing from 16% in 2002 to 19% in 2013, while the non-Orthodox share declined from 84% to 80%; the Haredi share rose from 6% to 9%.[1] Among respondents aged forty and older in the 2014–2015 survey, 28% of Haredim reported at least seven children, compared with 5% of Datiim, 2% of Masortim, and fewer than 1% of Hilonim.[1]

A 2025 estimate placed the Haredi population at approximately 1.45 million, or 14.3% of Israel's total population, with annual growth of 4.2%.[19] About 57% were under twenty, and Haredi fertility in 2021–2023 was estimated at 6.5 children per woman, compared with 2.2 among other Jewish women.[19] Projections anticipated more than two million Haredim, or 16% of the national population, in 2033 and approximately 3.2 million, or 22%, in 2045.[19]

Migration balances can fluctuate despite long-term growth.[20] An account of 2024 estimated approximately 80,000 departures, 30,000 returns after long-term stays abroad, and 30,000 new immigrants, with an estimated annual migration deficit of about 18,000.[20] Its departure estimate included people who left in 2023 and had not returned a year later, and it characterized the balance as unusually negative.[20]

Four broad Hebrew self-descriptions structured the 2014–2015 survey: Hiloni, or secular, at 49%; Masorti, or traditional, at 29%; Dati, or religious, at 13%; and Haredi, often translated as ultra-Orthodox, at 9% of Jewish adults.[1] These describe an Israeli spectrum of identification and observance, not simply membership in international Jewish denominations.[21] Together, Haredim and Datiim made up approximately 22%, while Masortim and Hilonim accounted for 78%.[21]

Haredim were generally highly observant of halakha, while Datiim commonly observed practices such as keeping kosher and observing Shabbat.[1] Datiim were more integrated into wider Israeli society than Haredim, and Dati men were more likely than Haredi men to have served in the military.[1] Masortim represented a broad middle ground, with considerable variation in observance.[1] Many Hilonim maintained traditions such as keeping kosher or fasting on Yom Kippur, despite their secular identification.[1]

Reported prayer and synagogue attendance illustrate the differences.[1] Daily prayer was reported by 76% of Haredim and 58% of Datiim, compared with 1% of Hilonim; 79% of Hilonim said they never prayed.[1] Among Masortim, about one-fifth prayed daily and approximately three-in-ten never prayed.[1] Weekly religious-service attendance was reported by 85% of Haredim, 74% of Datiim, and 1% of Hilonim, while 60% of Hilonim said they never attended synagogue.[1] Nevertheless, 87% of Hilonim had hosted or attended a Passover Seder.[1]

Other surveys likewise found that secular identity could coexist with belief and selected observances.[22] A September 2012 survey of 500 Jewish adults classified respondents as 49% secular, 32% traditional, 12% religious, and 7% Haredi.[22] In that survey, 77% believed in God, including 52% of secular respondents, and about three-quarters said Jewish values or commandments guided their daily conduct.[22] Forty-two percent attended synagogue on Yom Kippur, while 35% never attended; among secular respondents, the corresponding figures were 28% and 62%.[22] Half connected Jewishness and Israeliness, rising to around 60% among religious and traditional respondents.[22]

A 2026 breakdown for Jewish adults aged twenty and older used five categories: 39.6% nonreligious or secular, 21.8% traditional but not very religious, 14.0% traditional-religious, 12.4% religious, and 11.5% Haredi.[17] A separate study reported in 2023 identified about 45% as traditional, using a broader conception that could coexist with another primary identity, such as secular-traditional or religious-traditional.[23] It described traditionalism as extending across ethnic boundaries, including increasing numbers of Ashkenazi Jews and immigrants from the former Soviet Union.[23] Among traditional Jews in that study, 55% understood the state's Jewish character primarily in national terms, while fewer than one-third emphasized religion.[23]

Individual identification can also change over a lifetime.[24] In a representative face-to-face survey of 591 Jewish adults conducted from March 3 to April 4, 2024, 22% reported moving between Haredi, Dati, Masorti, and Hiloni identities since childhood.[24] Fifteen percent had shifted toward a less observant group and 6% toward a more observant one; switching was reported by 33% of those aged fifty and older, compared with 8% of those under thirty-five.[24] Nine percent of all Jewish adults had become Hiloni after another upbringing, while 3% had left a Hiloni upbringing; Dati identification showed the reverse pattern, with 9% leaving and 3% entering.[24] Fewer than 1% had left a Haredi upbringing, and a similarly small share had entered Haredi identification.[24]

Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jewish identities encompass overlapping geographic histories, ritual traditions, and prayer customs.[3] Ashkenazi backgrounds are associated mainly with Europe; Sephardi origins lie in Iberia, with communities later dispersed across Europe, North Africa, and Turkey; Mizrahi backgrounds include Iraq, Iran, Yemen, North Africa, and other Middle Eastern communities.[3] Ethiopian Jewish traditions include those of the Beta Israel community.[3] Languages, customs, religious traditions, and oral histories vary within this wider population, and marriages across ethnic lines have become commonplace.[3]

In the 2014–2015 survey, 45% identified as Ashkenazi and 48% as Sephardi or Mizrahi.[5] Two-thirds of Ashkenazi respondents identified as Hiloni, compared with 32% of Sephardi/Mizrahi respondents, while 42% of the latter identified as Masorti.[5] Haredim and Hilonim were more likely to identify as Ashkenazi, whereas Datiim and Masortim were more likely to identify as Sephardi or Mizrahi.[1] Sephardi and Mizrahi respondents were generally more religiously observant than Ashkenazim.[1]

Communal life ranges from integration into the broader population to relatively separate neighborhoods or localities with independent educational, cultural, and welfare institutions.[4] Friendship networks in the survey were overwhelmingly Jewish: 98% said all or most of their close friends were Jewish.[25] Within Jewish society, 89% of Haredim and 90% of Hilonim said all or most close friends belonged to their own subgroup, compared with 48% of Masortim.[1][25]

Marriage and partnership also often remained within religious subgroups.[25] Overall, 84% of married or partnered Jewish respondents had a partner from their own subgroup.[25] Ninety-five percent of married Haredim had a Haredi spouse, and 93% of partnered Hilonim had a Hiloni partner.[1] Masortim had more cross-group partnerships: approximately one-third of married Masortim had a Dati or Hiloni spouse.[1] Ninety-five percent of Haredim would have been uncomfortable with a child marrying a secular Jew, while about nine-in-ten Hilonim expressed discomfort with a child marrying a Haredi Jew.[1]

Approximately 2% of married or partnered Jewish respondents had a partner of a non-Jewish faith or no religious affiliation.[25] Among those primarily speaking Russian at home, 11% had a non-Jewish partner, including 7% with an unaffiliated partner and 4% with a Christian partner.[25] Religious intermarriages were not conducted in Israel, but marriages between people of different faiths performed abroad were recognized.[25]

Israel's share of world Jewry grew from approximately 6% in 1948 to about 45% at the beginning of 2025.[2] A separate 2025 estimate placed it at around 46%, or approximately 7.2 million people.[18] The country consequently brought together a much larger proportion of the Jewish people than at statehood, with a cultural composition shaped by immigration from postwar Europe, Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and the former Soviet Union.[18]

In the 2014–2015 survey, support for the right of Jews everywhere to immigrate to Israel and receive citizenship was nearly unanimous.[1] Ninety-one percent considered a Jewish state necessary for the Jewish people's long-term survival, while 76% thought antisemitism was both common and increasing worldwide.[1] These shared positions existed alongside substantial differences in religious observance, social networks, and understandings of Jewish identity.[1]

Historical memory and transmission to children were important components of identity.[5] Sixty-five percent considered remembering the Holocaust essential to being Jewish, 47% said the same of living an ethical or moral life, 35% of observing halakha, and 33% of living in Israel.[5] Asked to name additional essentials in their own words, 53% mentioned providing children with Jewish education or sharing Jewish traditions with them.[5] These responses connected Jewish belonging with memory, ethics, religious practice, place, and intergenerational continuity rather than a single universally emphasized element.[5]

Recognition as Jewish differs across personal identification, immigration law, population registration, and the Chief Rabbinate's religious criteria.[26][27] The 1970 amendment to the Law of Return defines a Jew for that law as someone born to a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism who is not a member of another religion, while separately extending immigration rights to a Jew's child, grandchild, and specified spouses.[26] Interpretive questions concerning membership in another religion have reached the Supreme Court.[28] Register-based population estimates can therefore include people who do not religiously identify as Jewish while excluding some people eligible for aliyah through Jewish ancestry.[29]

In 2023, approximately 450,000 citizens who identified as Jewish but did not meet the Chief Rabbinate's criteria, together with members of unrecognized religious groups, were recorded as lacking religion.[27] Most were former Soviet immigrants and their descendants whose family ancestry qualified them for citizenship but who could not prove matrilineal Jewish descent.[27] Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform conversions in Israel were recognized for immigration, citizenship, and registration, but non-Orthodox converts could not obtain certain Jewish religious services, including marriage, divorce, or burial in a Jewish cemetery.[27]

Public opinion reflected disagreement over religious authority.[27] In a survey of 800 Jewish adults reported in 2023, 86% supported freedom of religion and conscience, 60% supported separation of religion and state, and 59% supported equal status for Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform traditions.[27] Fifty-six percent favored recognizing immigrants as Jewish through self-identification, 33% through conversion in those traditions, and 66% supported recognition of marriage choice, including civil and non-Orthodox marriage.[27] A different 2014 survey of 500 adults found 58% defining Jewishness through a Jewish mother and 26% through self-identification; 6% each selected religious observance or Jewish study.[30] Self-identification was accepted by 42% of secular respondents, 15% of traditional respondents, and 3% of religious and Haredi respondents.[30]

Religion's role in government also divided respondents.[1] Although there was broad agreement that Israel could be both Jewish and democratic, 89% of Haredim prioritized halakha in a hypothetical conflict, while 89% of Hilonim prioritized democratic principles.[1] Making halakha official law for Jews was favored by 86% of Haredim and 69% of Datiim, but opposed by 57% of Masortim and 90% of Hilonim.[1]

Ethnic inequalities have also generated debate.[3][5] Early immigrants experienced differences in access to housing, stipends, education, prestigious military units, and government leadership between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews, although divisions became less pronounced with greater integration by the 1980s.[3] In the 2014–2015 survey, 32% of Sephardi/Mizrahi respondents perceived substantial discrimination against Mizrahim, compared with 9% of Ashkenazim; these measured perceptions, not discrimination directly.[5]

Another survey question found 21% strongly agreeing and 27% agreeing that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel, while 29% disagreed and 17% strongly disagreed.[1] Results from other surveys varied with wording, including whether questions specified Arab citizens, voluntary transfer, or compensation, limiting direct comparisons.[1]