Secularism in Israel

Hiloni, usually translated as “secular,” is one of four broad self-defined identities commonly used by Israeli Jews, alongside Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox; Dati, or religious; and Masorti, or traditional.[1] These categories encompass differing levels of observance rather than constituting formal denominations, and the boundaries between religious, traditional, and secular life are not clear-cut.[1] Secular identification can express a cultural or ancestral understanding of Jewishness without requiring either atheism or the rejection of Jewish customs.[1]

In the 2014–2015 survey, 83% of Hilonim understood being Jewish mainly as a matter of ancestry or culture, while 4% understood it mainly as religion.[1] Nevertheless, 88% said they were proud to be Jewish, and 59% described themselves as Israeli first and Jewish second.[1][5] Among Jewish respondents overall, 55% understood Jewishness mainly through ancestry or culture, 22% mainly through religion, and 23% through both.[5] These responses place secular Jewish identity within a wider range of understandings of nationality, family, religion, and collective belonging.[5][6]

Israel’s institutional arrangements combine a Jewish national character with protections for religious freedom rather than a mandatory separation of religion and state.[7] Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty describes Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state,” while recognized religious communities retain jurisdiction over important personal-status matters.[3][7] The resulting relationship makes secularism relevant not only to private belief but also to public services, family formation, schooling, and the exercise of state authority.[4][7]

Before statehood, secular Zionism included political Zionists seeking Jewish sovereignty, cultural Zionists seeking a revived Hebrew culture, and Labor-socialist Zionists combining nationalism with labor, agriculture, and social justice.[2] Labor Zionism built institutions that shaped the pre-state Jewish community and Israel’s first decades.[2] Secularism therefore developed both as a cultural project and as part of the political effort to establish Jewish sovereignty.[2]

The close connection between Jewish nationality and religion complicated the creation of a wholly secular national culture.[2] Debate over religious language in the Declaration of Independence was resolved through the inclusion of “Rock of Israel,” wording intended to refer to God while permitting different interpretations.[2] Large-scale immigration from the Middle East during the state’s first two decades also brought traditional Jewish perspectives linking national return with inherited Jewish tradition.[2]

Tensions between political Zionism and parts of the religious establishment extended back to the late nineteenth century.[8] A central founding-era accommodation took shape in David Ben-Gurion’s letter of June 19, 1947, to religious-party leaders.[4] Its assurances addressed the Sabbath as the official day of rest for Jews, kosher food in government-operated kitchens, religious demands concerning personal status, and autonomy for religious education alongside a regulated minimum of secular subjects.[4] These undertakings became associated with the religion-state framework known as the “status quo.”[4][8]

At statehood, Labor and the Orthodox National Religious Party reached a compromise accepting religious jurisdiction in certain areas.[2] Israel also continued the Ottoman and British Mandate system under which religious courts handled personal-status matters.[4] Secular parties accepted that arrangement partly because of concern that civil divorce could create serious consequences under Jewish religious law for women who remarried and their children.[4] The compromise did not make Israel a religious state, but it gave religious authorities substantial power in areas including marriage and conversion.[2]

The founding arrangement was understood as potentially alterable by a future constitution, but no constitution was adopted.[4] Instead, a series of Basic Laws became Israel’s constitutional foundation.[7] Over subsequent decades, secularism became more closely associated with reducing religion’s authority in public life than with constructing a new secular Hebrew culture.[2] The original accommodation continued to shape politics through later provisions and agreements rather than remaining solely a founding-era understanding.[8]

A face-to-face survey of 5,601 Israeli adults, conducted in Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian between October 2014 and May 2015, found that 49% of Jewish respondents identified as Hiloni, 29% as Masorti, 13% as Dati, and 9% as Haredi.[6] Hilonim represented 40% of all Israeli adults surveyed, a different denominator from their 49% share among Jewish adults.[1] These figures describe self-identification during that survey period rather than a timeless distribution of religious belief.[6]

Other surveys used different categories and populations.[9][10] A late-2016 survey found that 45% of Jews described their lifestyle as secular, 25% as traditional, 16% as very religious, and 14% as Haredi; the secular group was the largest but not an absolute majority.[9] In 2020, among Jews aged 20 and older, 44.8% described themselves as “not religious, secular,” 20.5% as “traditional not-so-religious,” 12.5% as “traditional-religious,” 11.7% as “religious,” and 10.0% as “ultra-Orthodox.”[10]

Figures reported for Rosh Hashanah 2026 placed the nonreligious or secular share among Jewish Israelis aged 20 and older at 39.6%, alongside 21.8% traditional but not very religious, 14.0% traditional-religious, 12.4% religious, and 11.5% Haredi.[11] Differences in survey dates, wording, and population definitions mean that these estimates should not be treated as directly interchangeable or as independently demonstrating a particular trend.[9][11]

A comparison within an earlier social-survey series found the Hiloni share among Jewish adults aged 20 and older broadly steady between 2002 and 2013, moving from 42% to 43%.[6] Over the same period, the Haredi share increased from 6% to 9%, the Dati share from 10% to 11%, and the Masorti share declined from 41% to 37%.[6] Survey context, margins of error, wording, and age coverage limit comparisons between that series and the separate 2014–2015 survey.[6]

Religious identity also changes within individual lives.[12] A nationally representative survey of 591 Jewish adults conducted from March 3 to April 4, 2024, found that 22% had changed identity groups since childhood, with 15% moving to a less observant group and 6% to a more observant one.[12] Nine percent of Israeli Jews had become Hiloni after being raised in another group, while 3% had left a Hiloni upbringing for another identity.[12] Among those raised Hiloni, 93% continued to identify that way.[12]

Among Hilonim in the 2014–2015 survey, 40% said they did not believe in God, meaning that secular self-identification did not uniformly signify disbelief.[1] Seventy-nine percent said religion was not too important or not at all important in their lives, 79% said they never prayed, and 60% said they never attended synagogue.[1][6] Only 1% reported praying daily.[6]

Participation in selected Jewish traditions was considerably more widespread than regular worship.[1] Eighty-seven percent of Hilonim had hosted or attended a Passover Seder, and 53% said they at least sometimes lit candles before Shabbat.[1] Many also observed practices such as keeping kosher or fasting on Yom Kippur, while 95% said they traveled on Shabbat.[1][6] Among Israeli Jews overall, 93% had attended a Seder in the previous year and 60% had fasted throughout Yom Kippur, even though 50% said they never prayed.[6]

Intermediate identities such as “traditional” or “non-religious” can describe combinations of practice that a simple religious-secular division does not capture.[13] A person may shop on Shabbat while fasting on Yom Kippur, avoiding nonkosher food, or occasionally attending synagogue.[13] Secular Jews may also share commitments to Jewish continuity with religious Jews while understanding those commitments in ethno-cultural terms.[13]

A small study conducted at Ruppin College in November 2001 illustrates the variety within secular identification.[14] Among its 278 students, most aged 21–26, 91% identified as secular; within that group, 10% called themselves “anti-religious secular.”[14] Many participants valued Jewish traditions and practices as sources of spirituality while favoring an open, liberal approach to Jewish identity.[14] The researchers cautioned that their proposed category of the “secular believer” required further research.[14]

Measures of nonreligion also differ from measures of atheism.[15][16] A report on 2002–2004 social-survey findings placed secular identification at 44%, traditional identification at 39%, religious identification at 9%, and Haredi identification at 8%, while reporting that 1.5% of secular Jews called themselves atheists.[15] A different international survey conducted at the end of 2014 found that 57% of Israeli respondents called themselves “not a religious person,” 8% “a convinced atheist,” and 30% “a religious person,” with 5% unsure or not responding.[16] Its categories were not the same as the Jewish identity groups used in other Israeli surveys.[16]

Gender adds another dimension to reported practice.[17] Among Israeli Jews, 37% of men and 18% of women attended synagogue at least weekly, while 64% of men and 57% of women fasted throughout the preceding Yom Kippur.[17] In separate figures concerning secular respondents, women more often reported praying always or frequently than men, at 12.7% compared with 8.2%.[17] Women were also more likely to identify as traditional, while men were slightly more likely to identify as religious or Haredi.[17]

Israel has no official religion, and its major religious communities—Christian, Druze, Jewish, and Muslim—exercise jurisdiction over internal religious affairs and personal-status matters including marriage, divorce, and burial.[3] Religious family courts are autonomous and government-funded.[3] Freedom to practice or not practice religious beliefs, including freedom of conscience, faith, and worship, forms part of the country’s stated protections, alongside its Jewish and democratic character.[7]

Domestic marriages with legal standing are performed according to the religious statutes of recognized communities.[7] Jewish marriages conducted in Israel require Orthodox rabbinical sanction, including for secular Jews, while marriages performed abroad can be recognized.[6] Religious courts generally do not provide for interreligious marriages.[6] Where both spouses are registered with the same recognized religion, religious courts have exclusive jurisdiction over divorce.[7]

Limited civil-registration routes exist outside that religious court system, including marriages abroad and specified arrangements involving people of different religions or people both recorded as “lacking religion.”[7] Following a March 2023 Supreme Court ruling, the Population and Immigration Authority registered civil marriages performed online in Utah, including marriages of LGBTQI+ couples.[7] Hundreds of couples whose registrations had been held up were subsequently registered, and a reported 150–175 Israeli couples married online in Utah each month following the ruling.[7] This route concerns recognition of marriages performed under a foreign jurisdiction rather than the creation of a general domestic civil-marriage system.[7]

The Chief Rabbinate regulates public religious life in areas including kashrut standards and personal-status matters such as marriage, divorce, burial, and conversion.[18] Its decisions have the force of law within its jurisdiction.[18] The institutional significance of religious authority consequently extends beyond whether a person privately observes religious commandments.[7][18]

Education provides distinct frameworks for different relationships to Jewish tradition.[18][19] State schools teach Jewish studies from a cultural perspective, while state-religious schools incorporate Orthodox religious life into the school environment.[18] Secular schools use Hebrew as their language of instruction and teach Jewish studies within a cultural rather than religious framework, alongside religious and alternative school systems.[19] The founding status-quo arrangements also provided for religious educational autonomy together with basic secular curricular requirements.[4]

There is no legal requirement for individuals personally to observe or refrain from observing Shabbat.[7] Nevertheless, Shabbat and Jewish holidays are national days of rest under labor law, with alternative rest days permitted for non-Jewish workers.[7] The Jewish calendar shapes public celebrations, and most businesses and public transit lines close on Shabbat in Jewish areas.[18] These collective arrangements coexist with widely varying levels of individual observance.[20]

National-government-funded public transportation generally may not operate on Shabbat, subject to exceptions.[7] Local authorities have funded privately operated bus lines to work around that restriction.[7] A 2019 initiative involving Tel Aviv and three neighboring towns offered free Shabbat buses; because passengers did not pay, the service fell outside the legal definition of public transportation described at the time.[21] Taxis, shared taxis, and private transport cooperatives also provided alternatives while regular bus and train services generally did not operate.[21]

In the 2014–2015 survey, 94% of Hilonim opposed shutting down all public transportation nationwide on Shabbat.[1] Traditional respondents were more divided: 44% supported a nationwide halt, while 52% preferred some transportation to operate in at least some places.[22] The same survey found that 93% of secular respondents opposed imposing gender separation on public transit serving Haredi communities, while 5% supported it.[22]

Public preferences also distinguish between limited service and unrestricted operation.[23] In a 2017 survey, 45% supported limited or modified Shabbat transportation, 28% regular service, 19% the existing arrangement, and 8% ending the limited services then operating.[23] These alternatives show that disagreement over Shabbat policy includes the scale and form of services, not simply a choice between complete closure and ordinary weekday provision.[23]

In the 2014–2015 survey, 89% of Hilonim said democratic principles should take precedence if they conflicted with halakha, while 89% of Haredim chose halakha.[1] Among Jewish respondents overall, 62% prioritized democratic principles and 24% religious law.[6] Ninety percent of Hilonim opposed making halakha the official law for Jews in Israel, whereas 86% of Haredim and 69% of Datiim supported that proposal.[1] Across Jewish respondents, 64% opposed it and 29% supported it.[6]

These differences existed alongside broad acceptance of a Jewish and democratic state.[1] Seventy-six percent of Israeli Jews believed Israel could be both Jewish and democratic, with majorities in each of the four identity groups agreeing.[1] The secular-religious divide also did not map neatly onto every political issue, including views concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[6]

On government policy, 60% of Jewish respondents favored keeping religion separate from government policies, compared with 36% favoring government promotion of religious values and beliefs.[6] Among Hilonim, 88% favored separation and 8% promotion; among Haredim, the corresponding figures were 12% and 82%.[6] Eighty percent of Datiim favored government promotion of religious values, while Masortim were more evenly divided, at 46% for separation and 51% for promotion.[6][24]

A 2017 Religion and State Index survey of 800 Jewish adults reported support for separation rising from 56% in 2012 to 68% in 2017.[23] It also reported support for civil marriage increasing from 19% in 2015 to 30% in 2017, while the share saying they would choose marriage through the Rabbinate fell from 63% to 50%.[23] The reported maximum sampling error was 3.5%.[23] Eighty-six percent supported guarantees of freedom of religion and conscience, and 65% supported equal recognition for Reform and Conservative movements alongside Orthodox Judaism.[23]

In the same survey, 78% favored Jewish heritage material in state schools if different secular, Orthodox, and liberal Jewish approaches were presented.[23] In a separate survey reported for 2023, 64% of 800 Jewish adults described their religion-state policy orientation as secular or traditional-not-religious.[7] Sixty percent supported separation, 66% supported recognition of marriage choice and equal recognition of civil and non-Orthodox marriages, and 71% supported Shabbat public transportation.[7] Another social-survey poll recorded 30% strongly agreeing and 19% agreeing that religion and state should be separated, alongside 15% somewhat disagreeing and 30% disagreeing entirely.[7] These are separate findings with different questions and should not be merged into one measure.[7]

Ninety-three percent of partnered Hilonim in the 2014–2015 survey reported that their spouse or partner was also Hiloni.[1] Ninety percent said all or most of their close friends belonged to their own group, compared with 89% of Haredim reporting the equivalent pattern.[6] These findings show that secular identification was associated with social networks as well as beliefs and practices.[1][6]

Intergroup marriage elicited particularly strong responses.[6] Ninety-three percent of Hilonim said they would be uncomfortable if a child married a Haredi Jew, while 95% of Haredim expressed discomfort with a child marrying a secular Jew.[6] Hilonim were more uncomfortable with the prospect of a child marrying a Haredi Jew than with that child marrying a Christian.[1] The boundaries between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jewish life thus operated within a shared Jewish population as well as across differences in observance.[1][6]

Secular Jewish life also retains substantial connections to shared calendars, family rituals, Hebrew culture, and Jewish continuity.[2][13] The combination of cultural Jewish identification, selective practice, and preferences concerning public authority makes secularism broader than either atheism or opposition to every religious expression.[1][13] Its significance lies partly in the distinction between participating in Jewish tradition voluntarily and accepting religious institutions’ authority over public or personal affairs.[1][7]

Recurring disputes concern religious authority over marriage, divorce, conversion, burial, school funding, Sabbath commerce, and Haredi military service.[4][13] Ben-Gurion initially allowed 400 yeshiva students to continue studying rather than serve, seeking to help rebuild the yeshiva world after the Holocaust; a historical account gives approximately 60,000 exemptions by 2010.[4] Secular objections emphasize equality and shared obligations, while Haredi arguments present Torah study as spiritual defense and a foundation of Jewish identity.[4] Religious law and liberal understandings of gender equality have also conflicted, and religious opponents have criticized the Supreme Court’s narrowing of religious jurisdiction.[4]

Scholarly interpretations differ over how to explain the endurance and transformation of the status quo.[25][26] Gal Levy treats it as an evolving sociopolitical arrangement reinforced through coalition agreements, rather than something explained solely by the original letter’s intent or legal force.[25] His account connects the decline of Labor’s dominance and the rise of religious and ethnic political forces with changing religion-state politics.[25] Shinui won 15 of 120 Knesset seats in 2003 but disappeared by the 2006 election, while Meretz fell to three seats in 2009; these examples underpin his interpretation that anticlerical politics did not displace the status quo.[25]

Guy Ben-Porat’s analysis distinguishes formal territorial politics from struggles over marriage, nonkosher food, and Sabbath observance that moved toward “sub-politics.”[26] It describes religious politics before the late 1960s as concentrated on the public sphere, followed after the 1967 war by a religious camp placing territorial questions at the forefront.[26] Other academic accounts connect changes beginning in the 1990s to economic, demographic, and sociocultural developments, while a 2023 analysis describes secularization as occurring alongside religious resurgence and entrenched institutional authority.[27][28]

An essay in the Jewish Review of Books interprets the status quo as an uneasy social contract combining public respect for religion with individual freedom, and argues that coalition bargaining and demographic change continually reshape it.[29] Its example of the largely nonreligious Theodor Herzl walking rather than taking a carriage into Jerusalem on Shabbat illustrates the author’s distinction between personal observance and public religious symbolism.[29] These interpretations address the meaning of secularism and public Jewish culture, rather than supplying a single legal definition or uniform measure of Israeli opinion.[25][29]