Judaism

A look inside the religious divide within Israeli society. A companion to Pew Research Center’s March 2016 report, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society.” The views and opinions expressed by the individual participants in this program are solely those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Pew Research Center. The […]

Table of Contents If you are Jewish, odds are that you live in Israel or the United States. Four out of every five Jews in the world live in these two countries, with approximately 6 million Jews in each. Differing perspectives Pew Research Center has surveyed Jewish adults in both places, and has found deep bonds between them. Nevertheless, […]

Israel has been a Jewish-majority country since its founding in 1948, and its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities – including some groups within the Jewish community – has persisted as a hotly debated topic throughout the nation’s history.

While significant shares of Israeli Arabs and Jews are optimistic about the prospect of a two-state solution, those who would live in this new independent state – the Arabs currently in the Palestinian territories – are less optimistic about it.

They come in several basic styles, with some more favored by particular Jewish subgroups than others.

When it comes to marriage, Israelis rarely cross religious lines.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Israel’s largest wave of Jewish immigrants arrived from Russia and other former Soviet republics. These Soviet Jews brought a secular mindset to Israel, and more than two decades later, Jews who were born in the former Soviet Union continue to be noticeably less religious than Israeli Jews overall.

Generally, women are more likely than men to be affiliated with a religious organization; women also pray more, and are more inclined to say religion is “very important” in their lives.

Nearly all Jews in the United States and Israel say they are proud to be Jewish, and strong majorities in both countries say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the two Jewish communities do not always agree about what it means to be Jewish.

The two largest organized Jewish denominations in America – Reform and Conservative Judaism – together have about five times as many U.S. members as the historically much older, more strictly observant Orthodox community. But the Reform and Conservative movements have a far smaller footprint in Israel.