Project Head: Shmuel Rosner
Participants: Ghila Amati | Nadia Beider | Ariel Bendor | Eliran Carsenti | Shimrit Cohen-Barbi | Janan Danial | Dana Fahn-Luzon | Shlomo Fischer | Shuki Friedman | Avi Gil | Yehonatan Givati | Noa Israeli | Eli Kannai | Dov Maimon | Robert Neufeld | Tamir Pardo | Rivka Ravitz | Daniela Regev | Yael Ribner | Lipaz Rotkovsy | John Ruskay | Jonathan Saidel | Roy Schondorf | Amit Shoval | Noah Slepkov | Yedidia Stern | Shalom Salomon Wald | Haim Zicherman | Eldar Zilber
The sociopolitical polarization in Israel, which has intensified considerably this year, is a highly significant development whose long-term impact on the state and world Jewry cannot, as yet, be foreseen. Assessments of that potential impact span a wide range of possibilities. At the optimistic end, it is regarded as a passing storm, while the more pessimistic view is that the past year’s events may herald a real change in Israel’s character as a Jewish and democratic state. A large part of this chapter will be devoted to an analysis of these events and their impact on the Jewish people.
This year the Diaspora communities have focused on fighting antisemitism and on trying to understand its implications. An in-depth discussion of this issue can be found in the Integrated Antisemitism Index (p. 95).
In the fall of 2022 elections were held in Israel – the “fifth round” of elections since 2018, when Israel entered a period of political instability; election cycles rapidly succeeded each other and governments rose and fell after brief stints in office, or altogether failed to form. The fall 2022 elections had a decisive outcome: the parties that joined to form a governing coalition enjoy a stable majority of 64 Knesset members. Likud is the cornerstone of the coalition, along with the two Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, and two right-wing parties that joined to form a single list, the Religious Zionism party and Otzma Yehudit. This is a coalition whose composition is relatively coherent, with an agenda marked by nationalist-right-wing positions in the diplomatic arena (particularly with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as broadly understood), and by traditional religious views regarding religion-state arrangements, the public sphere, education, and other areas.
Although the coalition that emerged generally self-describes as “conservative,” in every practical sense it is a coalition that aimed from the outset to significantly change the character of Israel’s political system and longstanding social arrangements. Among other things, the coalition aspires to alter the balance of power between the elected authorities (the Knesset, the government) and the courts/ justice system (the attorney general, the legal advisers in government ministries). The coalition also aims to introduce arrangements of far-reaching ideological importance, as with the intention, thus far unrealized, to enact a Basic Law: Torah Study that would enshrine a total exemption from military service for avrechim (married yeshiva students), or the intention – (currently abandoned in practical terms but not in principle) to modify the immigration criteria currently embedded in the Law of Return.
The coalition’s principal argument in favor of advancing this agenda is a “need for correction.” On the judicial level, the aim is to rectify a balance of power that became distorted, as the coalition sees it, through an ongoing and cumulative process of High Court adjudication and the conferral of excess power to the legal advisers. The claim is that these measures eroded the government’s and the Knesset’s ability to realize the will of the electorate. On the social level, the aim is to give greater power to population groups that (again per the coalition’s view) have been excluded from the centers of power and governance – the courts, the universities, the media, the business world, and so forth. All of the measures undertaken by the coalition can, in effect, be seen as a package whose fundamental purpose is to rearrange the power balance of Israeli public life to the advantage of the sectors that won a Knesset majority (to grossly generalize: the political right, residents of the periphery, Mizrahim, Haredim, religious, settlers, people without academic degrees, Masortim), and to erode the power of those sectors that many coalition supporters identify as “hegemonic” (to grossly generalize: residents of Israel’s central cities, academic degree holders, Ashkenazim, the secular, the political center and left).
The elected coalition’s intention of making major changes in certain areas of life became evident just a short time after the coalition formed, and rapidly led to a crisis that large swaths of the public, as well as a majority of those opposed to the new government, are calling “the most severe in the history of the state.” The main catalyst for the crisis was the unveiling of a comprehensive plan to reform the judicial system (a plan its opponents refer to as a “judicial coup”), which includes the cancellation of current arrangements pertaining to the selection process for Supreme Court justices, judicial review, the authority of legal advisers, and more. This is not the place for a comprehensive overview of the proposals, the reasoning behind them, or the arguments mounted against them. We will merely note that the proposals shook the Israeli public and caused a crisis to emerge, to which additional layers of meaning were later added. A broad front of organizations and activists coalesced in opposition to the reform proposals, and a large protest movement took to the streets in an attempt to block the proposals.
The first “peak” of the crisis, which was followed by a temporary lull, came in March, after Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the dismissal (later rescinded) of Defense Minister Yoav Galant. Galant had warned that the protest movement’s expansion – such as warnings from reserve soldiers, including IAF pilots, that they would not report for their voluntary reserve duty if the judicial reform proposals were passed by the Knesset – could harm Israel’s security. Immediately upon the announcement of his dismissal, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets, blocking major thoroughfares. The next day, the Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union, also announced that it would call a strike if the dismissal and the legislation were not halted. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced a suspension of the reform effort, and representatives of the coalition and opposition parties began a round of talks under the auspices of the President’s House (Beit HaNassi), in an attempt to reach an agreement on reforms that would be acceptable to both sides.
These compromise talks did not yield the desired outcome and were terminated due to a crisis of confidence (after the coalition refrained from choosing a representative to the Judicial Selection Committee). At the same time, unilateral efforts got underway to advance elements of the original reform plan. The first of these was the revocation of the reasonableness standard that enables the courts to assess the reasoning of decision-makers. These measures sharpened the tone and deepened the intensity of the anti-government demonstrations (which had not stopped at any point), and led to renewed threats of “civil disobedience,” expressed in a variety of ways. In turn, the government also sharpened its tone against the protesters, demanding that law enforcement authorities take a heavier hand toward those who violated the law by blocking roads, disturbing the order at the airport, calling for service refusal, and other acts.
Toward the end of July, just before the Knesset adjourned for recess, the coalition majority in the Knesset passed the law revoking the reasonableness standard. The immediate reactions to this were severe: a not-inconsiderable number of reserve soldiers (the exact number is unknown to the public, and also depends on who is counted, and when the counting is done) announced their intention to not report for duty, and credit rating agencies and financial institutions of various kinds around the world warned against investing in Israel. Petitions were filed with the Supreme Court to repeal the law.
In Israel, it is widely assumed that the demonstrations against the judicial reform, and the crisis that developed over the reform, are taking place against the background of weighty matters that go far beyond any dispute over the meaning of this or that clause of a given law. According to this view, the present situation reflects a principled ideological struggle between groups whose “visions” for Israel differ – even if, on many practical matters pertaining to policy, the groups do not strongly disagree. This is a struggle involving “identity groups” with certain general characteristics that are trying to anchor their values and their place in society with respect to identity groups of a different profile and character. All of this is happening in a dynamic demographic reality that is strengthening the traditional religious faction vis-à-vis the secular-traditionalist faction, and in an era when blunt, strident, and aggressive discourse yields evident political gain, and when trust in state institutions and the national common good is eroding.
Any firm representation of the various groups’ motivations and of the reasoning behind the arrangements they wish to establish in Israel will immediately be suspected of reflecting identification with one of the sides in the dispute. As noted, the coalition and its supporters complain that the decisive power in Israel does not lie with the “public,” as it ought to in a democratic country. Instead, they maintain, it is held by “elites” of various kinds, in the economic and political spheres, in academia, in the nation’s cultural institutions, and the like. According to this argument, all the government is trying to do is to rearrange the mechanisms of government so that the will of the majority that won the elections can be realized. Those who oppose the government’s measures argue that the government wants to arrogate to itself unbridled power so that it can silence criticism, erode the rights of minority groups, and, later, transform Israel’s liberal-democratic character and turn it into a country whose regime is conservative-authoritarian.
Both sides accuse their adversaries of concealing their “true” motives. The coalition supporters claim that the reform’s opponents want to achieve their real goal – the government’s dissolution – because they do not accept the outcome of the elections. The opposition maintains that the government’s declared goal of correcting the balance of power merely camouflages its desire to establish an undemocratic regime in Israel, or even to enable Prime Minister Netanyahu to avoid conviction in the legal proceedings underway against him. Each side evinces low levels of trust in the other side’s good intentions, and high degrees of willingness to attribute malicious intent to the opposing camp. This fuels a highly incendiary discourse hinting at violence repressed, semi-repressed, or on the verge of eruption.
Of course, an alternative and far less troubling description of the current situation can be offered. According to this alternative view, the government entered into a less-than-perfectly-planned process from which Israel is now having trouble extricating itself. Due to various political reasons – i.e., a system that gives significant influence to minority groups – the leadership underestimated the intensity of the opposition its actions would spark, found itself advancing an agenda that the populace could not tolerate, and fell into a political vortex from which it could not escape without seeming to have capitulated to opposition pressure (bolstered by threats from the military echelon the government regards as illegitimate and fundamentally antidemocratic). This kind of “swept-into-a-vortex” framing rests on an assumption, with which some scholars concur, that Israelis are not, fundamentally, deeply divided, and that on most of the important issues there is a broad consensus spanning the farthest reaches of the center-right to the farthest reaches of the center-left. Israelis (Jews) who fall within these political categories largely agree on the implications of the Israeli-Arab conflict, on the need for a compromise arrangement on matters of religion and state, on the need to develop the country economically, on the aspiration, in principle, to an equal sharing of the burden, and much more.
There is a considerable body of evidence that factually supports this alternative narrative of the past year, in addition to opinion polls from which data on areas of broad Israeli consensus can be extracted. One piece of evidence is the proven ability of groups of jurists and intellectuals of differing views to reach reasonable agreements about necessary and appropriate changes to the legal-political balance of power. In this narrative, it is not Israeli society that entered a crisis state, but rather the Israeli political system that is in crisis. And not only that, but the political system is drawing Israeli society as a whole after it, even though the crisis actually revolves around something in which Israeli society has no interest, certainly not at the high social price now being exacted.
One way or another, the past few months of unrest have intensified social polarization, reflected both in opinion polls and in actions on the ground. Since the start of the crisis there have been threatened public boycotts of businesses due to their owners’ political views (or their actions, such as strikes or participation in demonstrations), numerous reports of boycotting at individual encounters between Israelis (such as refusing to enter taxis whose drivers support the reform), and documented threats of violence, violent incidents, and heated verbal exchanges in the public space.
As noted, at the time of this writing (beginning of August 2023), the crisis has not been resolved; all that could be done was to sketch possible scenarios for its continuation and its impact on Israel’s future. The matrix presented here describes four general scenarios along two axes. One relates to the immediate choice faced by the coalition: whether to take advantage of the current political opportunity (a broad coalition) and continue advancing legislation that would prolong the crisis, or to try to bring the crisis to an end (i.e., halt the legislative effort). The other axis relates to what might happen in the aftermath of whichever choice the government makes. One possibility is a return to normal but with explosive potential, whether due to fear of a renewed legislative effort and protests, or a sense of despair and loss of trust on the losing side. The other possibility is an attempt to grasp the crisis by the tail – to promote a change in constitutional arrangements that would prevent similar crises in the future (this possibility is being advanced by, among others, Professor Yedidia Stern, President of the Jewish People Policy Institute).
The basic, self-evident preference of Diaspora Jews is for Israel to function as a cohesive society. When Israel is divided, the discord also affects Jews in other places, who typically react in one of three ways: 1) Distancing and indifference, out of a sense that the dispute is not theirs, that they have no right to intervene in it, or that engagement with a divided Israel does not contribute to their everyday peace of mind; 2) Choosing and supporting one of the competing views in Israel, i.e., some will side with the government and others with the government’s critics. The breakdown will usually be in accordance with religious and political identification (politically conservative and Orthodox Jews will support the government’s position at much higher levels than Jews of other affiliations); and 3) Taking a critical stance toward Israeli society as a whole, with a tendency to see the intra-Israeli controversy as proof that something is fundamentally wrong with Israeli society, the Israeli political system, the Israeli ethos, and so forth.
These three responses have also been observed over the past few months. In many cases they were typical reactions for the various Jewish subgroups, quite similar to their reactions in earlier instances of intra-Israeli discord. However, this year there were also reactions indicative of a pattern that has not been seen for several decades: real anxiety for Israel’s future, along with greater doubt regarding the country’s ability to cope with its challenges and to serve as a flourishing center for the Jewish people for generations to come.
Demographic growth, military strength, economic prosperity, and cultural development have made Israel the Jewish people’s strongest community. Extensive empirical data attest to this, as do JPPI studies. Israeli Jews in particular, but also a great many non-Israeli Jews, agree that “Israel is the center of the Jewish people.” But even those for whom attachment to Israel is not a major identity element know that Israel has organizational strength beyond that of any other community, by virtue of being a successful sovereign political entity. Along with the inherent difficulties of running a state – maintaining and defending it – Israel enjoys a relative cultural cohesion that spares it many challenges that Diaspora Jews have to face – such as the difficulty of sustaining a communal identity in a universalist world, eroding attachment to a religious community in a world that is growing more secular, or the change in consciousness that arises from increased involvement with general society.
Many of these advantages that Israel enjoys in its relations with Diaspora Jewry have been called into question this year. Many Israelis have expressed doubts (in articles, interviews, and surveys) about Israel’s future as a democratic state. Israeli cultural cohesion is being sorely tested by polarization. Diaspora Jews encounter two dilemmas with regard to the crisis in Israel: 1) Is it still possible to embrace a policy that makes Israel the cornerstone of Jewish identity, Jewish peoplehood, and Jewish identification; and 2) Do Diaspora Jews have the right, or the ability, to influence what is happening in Israel so as to ensure an outcome that leaves intact Israel’s status as the Jewish people’s core sovereign entity?
Politically, there is no question that most Diaspora Jews identify with opponents of the current government and are protesting the judicial reform. A March 2023 survey of American Jews found that most of them consider “the future of democracy” to be one of the two major issues determining their political stance.
An overwhelming majority (69%) of them view the Democratic Party in the U.S. as a better protector of democracy than the Republican Party. A similar majority (62%, with a composition almost completely overlapping that of the previous question) express a lack of confidence in Israel’s sitting prime minister. A nearly identical majority (61%) said that the measures proposed by the government (in March, when the envisioned reforms were broader in scope) would weaken Israeli democracy. The exceptions in this case were Republican voters (a quarter of whom feel that the measures would weaken Israeli democracy) and Orthodox Jews (two-thirds of whom feel that the measures would strengthen Israeli democracy).
In other words, the attitudes of American Jews regarding the proposed Israeli judicial reform reflect the views of Israeli Jews. The main existing gap stems from differences in population composition: a large majority of American Jews are non-Orthodox and vote for a party located within the left-center space. Accordingly, most American Jews prioritize the “future of democracy” as the deciding issue and feel that the measures taken by the Israeli government will “weaken democracy.” This reflection of Israeli views is transforming Israel from a unifying symbol into a point of controversy for American Jewry. And as discord in Israel intensifies, so will it intensify among Diaspora Jews as well.
Israel’s status as a vibrant center of Jewish life solidified once it became clear that the country’s demographic weight within the Jewish people was rising and that Israel is a magnet for Jews. In recent decades, there has been a steady positive migration pattern in Israel (the number of arrivals exceeds the number of departures), and this is evidence of economic and cultural strength. Such trends naturally do not change within a short period of time (except in cases of sudden catastrophe), but this year there were some worrying indications that the sociopolitical polarization has caused a significant number of Israelis to seriously consider whether they want to continue living in Israel.
Data collection on the movement of Israelis out of Israel and back to it is inherently difficult, not only this year but for all years. However, a few developments observed this year warrant attention: growing social-media discussion of options for leaving the country or “relocating,” including groups organized for that purpose in the wake of the social crisis (in July the director-general of the Health Ministry held a discussion with a “relocation” group of around a thousand physicians); a proliferation of articles and items in the press and on television about Israelis who have left or are leaving Israel (a phenomenon that either describes or creates a certain “atmosphere,” while attesting to a negative trend in both cases); evidence of a rising number of applications by Israelis for foreign passports;
the creation of additional options for obtaining foreign citizenship (German and Austrian); data indicating that many Israelis are “thinking” about the possibility of leaving Israel.
A survey conducted in March found that nearly a third of Israeli Jews “have considered leaving or recommending to their children that they leave” Israel; 6% of them have also “taken action along those lines.”
A survey conducted in July also found that a third of Israeli citizens “are considering leaving the country.” Of course, there is a big difference between statements such as “I’m considering” and taking actual steps to leave Israel. Also, as noted, data on who is leaving now will not be clearly and officially tabulated for some time. Even so, the recent survey findings point to a changing trend, at least regarding questions of this kind. A 2007 survey, for instance, looked at preferences regarding residence in Israel or elsewhere, and found that 13% would prefer to relocate.
A 2018 survey on the same topic yielded similar findings. The wording of the questions is not identical, and a comparison of those who say they would “prefer to relocate” and those who say they are “considering relocation” would not be precise. Nevertheless, an increase in talk of relocating, especially among highly educated and high-income populations, does not attest to social resilience or cohesion.
The feasibility of leaving Israel – i.e., whether and how many Israelis can seriously consider moving to other countries – is, of course, another key to understanding the trend. Precise data are not published on the share of foreign-passport holders within the entire Israeli population (and it is unclear whether, or how, such data might be maintained by the state institutions themselves). Various unofficial estimates published in the past have placed the number of Israelis with foreign passports between half a million and one and a half million. But two surveys conducted recently yielded quite similar findings, and this makes it possible to estimate the share of foreign-passport holders among Israeli Jews as one-fifth. An Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) survey put the share at nearly 20%,
versus 23% in a JPPI survey (July 2022). Both surveys indicate that 60% of Israel’s Jewish citizens have no foreign passports and are uninterested, or not engaged, in efforts to obtain them. Six percent have acted to obtain a foreign passport and are in the process of doing so, half of them before the most recent elections and half of them after. According to the JPPI survey, another tenth of this population has thought about the possibility but not taken action (the IDI survey puts the share at 16%).
Combined, the data indicate that about a third of all Israelis hold foreign passports, are working to obtain foreign passports, or are thinking about doing so. These findings, of course, vary somewhat between population groups, though not always significantly. The decision to start the process of obtaining a foreign passport after the announcement of judicial reform efforts has an especially high incidence among the center-left (12%). And again, one must carefully distinguish between several stages, each of which has a different meaning. A statement such as “I’m considering” is not the same as “I’ve started the process,” nor does starting the process, or even the fact of having obtained a foreign passport, necessarily denote an intention of leaving, but rather a desire to ensure that the option exists if and when there is such an intention. Nevertheless, it does seem appropriate this year to warn of a trend that could have serious consequences for Israeli society – its strength and its cohesion.
Looking ahead to the coming months, Israel is entering a period with the potential to deepen already-serious tensions between the Haredi public and the non-Haredi public. The Haredi parties are important partners in the coalition, and are therefore regarded by the government’s critics as directly responsible for the sociopolitical crisis that is roiling Israel. However, for a considerable portion of the crisis period Haredi public figures expressed reservations about the coalition efforts and warned that tensions could worsen. After the legislation canceling the reasonableness standard was passed, both the Haredi press and some members of the Haredi leadership called for a halt to further legislation and a restoration of calm.
The Haredi leadership has an obvious parliamentary interest in the tensions being defused. The coalition’s focus on judicial reform pushed aside a number of issues high on the Haredi parties’ agenda. The state budget, once passed, did reflect accomplishments on the part of the Haredi elected officials, in the form of budget increases in various areas, including a large increase in outlays for avrechim (which the Haredim view as offsetting attrition). However, the public as a whole (including a fair number on the right) exhibits growing reservations about budget increases for the institutions and objectives of the Haredi sector. The political package deal, of course, requires that the coalition partners take Haredi priorities into consideration, so as to ensure the government’s stability. However, in the past year there has been a certain decline in the willingness of non-Haredi subgroups to maintain the economic and social status quo between the state and the Haredim. Before the state budget was passed, an official document published by the head of the Budget Department in the Ministry of Finance expressed strong opposition to the fact that the budget he himself had helped draw up, under the guidance of the political echelon, did not address the challenge of integrating the Haredi community into Israel’s economy. The budget failed to incorporate incentives for raising the share of employed Haredi men or for the introduction of core studies into Haredi educational institutions.
The Knesset’s winter session, which starts after the High Holy Days of September-October 2023, is expected to focus much of its attention on issues relating to the Haredi sector, in particular that of the draft. The Conscription Law that provided for the military-service exemption of young Haredi males studying in yeshiva has expired, and the Knesset must pass a new law, which the Haredi representatives want to be anchored in such a way as to end all discussion of the exemption issue (apparently through the addition of an override clause that would make the Court unable to strike down the law).
In the present public atmosphere, and especially given the fact that many of the opposition’s actions are driven by protest groups made up of reserve soldiers and other Israelis for whom IDF service is a significant identity element (Achim L’Neshek – “Brothers in Arms”), the enshrinement of a Haredi conscription exemption could prove explosive in the social arena. Some opposition protesters have already warned that legislation to enact the exemption would yet more greatly intensify a dangerous trend of politicizing military service, i.e., it would cause even more reserve soldiers to stop volunteering, and perhaps even erode motivation for service among young people. There is already concern in the IDF about a possible erosion of the conscription model and of the “people’s army” ethos, in light of demographic forecasts of an inevitable decline in the percentage of potential recruits (Israelis who are not Haredim or Arabs).
Given the above, engagement with the issues of Haredi conscription, budgeting of Haredi institutions, and Haredi influence in the Israeli public sphere could cause a number of situations to develop that would significantly impact the national agenda over the coming months: the coalition could have trouble making good on its promises to the Haredi parties, which would undermine its cohesion; protest measures against the government could intensify, and the protests could shift their focus to the Haredi sector and its representatives; public attitudes, and the attitudes of specific population groups, toward the Haredim could change; Haredi lawmakers could decide to take conciliatory measures vis-à-vis the opposition, to avoid being the primary target of criticism and protest activities; and there could be attempts to arrive at a mutually-agreeable package deal regarding the conscription dilemma that would also address other issues (e.g., a draft exemption in exchange for core studies).
The pandemic exited the public consciousness almost as quickly as it had entered. The disease is still contagious, but its impact on everyday life seems to have evaporated, except for certain social phenomena that developed in the course of the pandemic and remain detectable. The activity patterns of Jews changed during the pandemic, and it was unclear whether they would prove temporary or permanent. One such pattern worth reexamining now that the pandemic has passed relates to the participation of Jews in communal prayer – an issue earlier Annual Assessments took up in depth.
The public response, and in particular the Jewish response, to the pandemic manifested in significantly altered prayer practices. Jews who steadfastly continued to engage in communal prayer (nearly all Orthodox Jews) modified their practice in one of two ways: holding prayer services outside of the synagogue, in the open air, or praying in smaller groups (to lower the risk of contagion). Many other Jews changed their approach in one of two other ways: either they stopped taking part in communal prayer altogether, or they switched to online worship. Several studies appeared this year that examined the degree and pace of return to normal in American houses of worship, Jewish and non-Jewish. Their findings show that the pandemic left a medium-term, and perhaps a long-term, mark on religious institutions (similar to its impact on workplaces and employees, who became accustomed to working remotely).
In general, Americans are attending religious services slightly less frequently in the post-Covid period than before. At the same time, there has been a slight increase in the percentage of participation in online religious services. The start of the pandemic brought a steep decline in church, mosque, and synagogue attendance, along with a rise (in some cases), in online attendance. This dramatic change was followed equally quickly by a return to something approaching normal among those whose practice it had been to attend synagogue services. However, online prayer participation has remained at its new higher level. The share of Jews who continued to attend online (remote) prayer services in 2022 was very similar to the share recorded in the summer of 2020.
Studies of post-pandemic prayer habits also enable us to form a picture of American Jews’ synagogue attendance. A majority (slightly more than half) of U.S. Jews do not attend synagogue at all, or almost never do so. This is what surveys conducted before the pandemic found, and as did surveys conducted after it. A 2020 Pew survey of Jewish Americans found that 52% of these Jews do not attend synagogue at all. A 2023 Pew survey found that 56% of American Jews had not participated in religious services in the “past month” (in person or online). In a June 2023 Pew survey, 55% of U.S. Jews said they “do not attend religious services in person or watch virtually.” There are small differences between the findings, but the results are consistent overall; clearly, between 50% and 60% of American Jews do not attend synagogue services.
The share of American Jews who regularly attend synagogue services is between a fifth and a third, depending on what counts as “regular.” A large majority of regular synagogue worshippers resumed their in-person synagogue attendance. A quarter of U.S. Jews say they participate in religious services only in synagogue settings (not online); only 6% participate online only, while 10% do both. In general, American Jews do not make large-scale use of technology for religious purposes, compared with other groups in the U.S. Only a tenth could be categorized as “heavy users” of religious technology. More Jews employ technology to read the Bible or for study purposes (15%) than for prayer purposes (6%). Fifteen percent of U.S. Jews say they use technology to follow or keep track of their religious leaders, while a third (33%) say they use the internet to find information about Jewish tradition.
