The findings show that the events of the past year have strengthened the “Jewish value” secular Israel Jews attach to national missions and symbols, as well as their sense of connection to Diaspora Jews.
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Main Finding
In August, the Jewish People Policy Institute’s (JPPI) monthly Israeli Society Index focused on the opinions and changing attitudes of secular Israeli Jews in relation to Judaism.
The report has three main parts: the first looks at changing attitudes regarding Jewish values; the second assesses changes in outlook and behavior in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war; the third examines the connection between secular Israeli Jews and the Diaspora.
Additional Findings
- Approximately eight in ten secular Israeli Jews consider it important that their children remain Jewish, essentially unchanged since 2018.
- Since 2018, there has been an uptick in the percentage of secular Israeli Jews who feel that serving in the IDF is essential to being a “good Jew.”
- Since 2018, there has been an increase in the percentage of secular Israeli Jews who feel that in order to be “good Jews,” parents should teach their children the importance of living in Israel.
- Disparities persist in how the war has affected attitudes toward Judaism among the “totally secular” and the “secular-traditional.”
- A quarter of the “secular-traditional” Israelis say that October 7 “brought them closer to Judaism,” while a fifth of the totally secular say that it “distanced them from Judaism.”
- A fifth of secular Israeli Jews say that the events have brought them closer to Diaspora Jews.
Jewish Values
This month’s JPPI Israeli Society Index survey was devoted to secular Israeli Jews, particularly their attitudes toward issues pertaining to the “Jewishness” of the individual and of society. Some questions were identical to those posed in JPPI’s 2018 Survey of Israeli Judaism. Response comparisons make it possible to determine whether the beliefs and behaviors of secular Israeli Jews have changed significantly over the past six years. Other questions examined whether respondents feel that this past year’s events (since the October 7 attacks) had an impact on their beliefs and behaviors with respect to “Jewishness.”
The findings indicate that a large majority of secular Israeli Jews attach importance to their Jewish identity, and most express a strong sense of Jewishness. When respondents were asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, the degree to which they “feel Jewish,” the weighted result obtained for all secular Israeli Jews was on average 8.5 out of 10. Responses to this question, and several others, showed a significant disparity between the “totally secular” subgroup and the subgroup that self-identified as “secular-traditional.”
Together, these two subgroups comprise half of all Israeli Jews (49% per the 2018 Israeli Judaism survey). It should be noted that Israeli Jewish society is divided into religiosity sectors in several different ways, each of which changes the picture to a certain degree. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 45% of Israeli Jews self-identify as “secular,” while another 19% self-define as “secular-traditional”. For purposes of the JPPI survey, respondents were asked to self-identify anew, and the data in this report refers solely to the two groups that are clearly secular (totally secular or secular-traditional). The size of these two groups within the Israeli populace is not equal; 30% of Israeli Jews are “totally secular,” while 20% are “secular-traditional.”
As mentioned, there is a consistent and substantial disparity between these two groups on a large share of the questions. This is also true for the question: “To what extent is it important to you that your children are Jewish?” For this question, no significant change was found between the 2018 and 2024 findings. However, the gap between the two secular groups persisted, with 60% of the totally secular saying that it is important to them (important or very important) that their children be Jews, and a significantly higher share, 90%, of the secular-traditional saying the same.
We also looked at a number of beliefs and behaviors and asked respondents to agree or disagree whether they are essential to being “good Jew.” These sort of judgments are, of course, subjective; we offered no rigorous clarification of the concept of a “Jew” or of what constitutes “good.” However, the ability to compare findings from this survey with those obtained six years ago in JPPI’s Israeli Judaism survey, allows us to identify shifts in the views of Israelis (in this case, secular Jews) with respect to “values” over time.
A comparative analysis of the responses from both surveys reveals that attitudes toward Jewishness (traditions and religious observance) have remained substantially unchanged in recent years among secular Israeli Jews. However, there has been a certain upswing in the attribution of “Jewish value” to several behaviors with a national dimension, such as serving in the IDF and having concern for all Jews. Because the comparison is between a survey conducted two weeks ago and one conducted six years ago, we have no way of knowing with absolute certainty whether the recent findings reflect the direct impact of the war, in the higher degree of attribution of “Jewishness” to actions of a national character, but such a supposition would not be unreasonable.
When we looked at the question of whether one must observe “holidays, rituals, and customs” in the home to be a “good Jew,” we found that most of the “totally” secular answered no – as in the 2018 survey.
By contrast, most of the “secular-traditional” answered yes – again consistent with the 2018 findings. Overall, the comprehensive 2018 Israeli Judaism study, whose detailed findings and analysis
were published in a book by Shmuel Rosner and Camil Fuchs (#IsraeliJudaism: Portrait of a Cultural Revolution) determined that there is a major difference in the observance of rituals and customs between Israeli Jews from the “totally secular” and “secular-traditional” subgroups. That is, self- identification as secular (“this is who I am”) manifests itself both in terms of views (“this is what I believe”) and customs (“this is what I do”).
As the following table shows, the 2024 findings show a slight drop in the percentage of totally secular Jews who feel that performing rituals indicates a “good Jewishness,” and a contrasting rise in the share of the “secular-traditional” subgroup who feel that observing rituals does indicate “good Jewishness.”
While there was no significant change in findings vis-à-vis 2018 for Israel’s secular Jewish population as a whole regarding views on the observance of Jewish traditions, a change common to both secular subgroups was detected in views that link “Jewish value” to certain issues of a national character: greater “Jewish value” is attributed to actions such as “serving in the IDF.”
As one can see, greater numbers among both the totally secular and the secular-traditional currently feel, “to a very large degree,” that IDF service is an indicator of being a good Jew.
Again, the assumption that this finding is inextricably linked the moment in time the survey was conducted – in the midst of war – would not be unreasonable.
Another question for which a significant disparity was found between the totally secular and the secular-traditional subgroups was whether, in order to be good Jew, one has to “teach your children living in Israel.”
On this question there is also a substantial discrepancy between the survey from six years ago, when most of the totally secular felt that raising children to live in Israel was not a major condition for being a “good Jew,” while most of the secular-traditional felt that instilling this value was an important factor in being a “good Jew.” In the present survey this disparity not only persisted, it widened substantially. Among the totally secular there was no significant change in the attachment of Jewish value to teaching one’s children to live in Israel compared with the 2018 survey, but among the secular-traditional there was an additional rise in the share of those who attach Jewish value to it.
In this context, it is worth recalling findings from JPPI’s May 2024 Israeli Society Index, which found a highly significant gap between the “secular” and the “traditionalist, not so religious” subgroups on the question “Where, in your opinion, should your children/grandchildren live?” The comparison between the 2018 survey and the one from this past May should be qualified, as the analysis was performed according to slightly different religiosity designations (for the former it was “totally secular” and “secular- traditional” and for the latter it was the “secular” versus “traditionalist, not so religious”).
Nevertheless, there is a certain overlap between these groups. One can see that the group with a relatively small majority (55%) who are certain the right place to live is Israel – the secular – is also the group with a lower proportion attributing “Jewish value” to teaching the importance of living in Israel. By contrast, the group with the largest majority (79%) of those who are sure the right place for their children and grandchildren to live is Israel – the “traditionalist, not so religious”– also have the largest share of those ascribing “Jewish value” to raising one’s children to live in Israel.
Jewishness in Wartime
JPPI’s August Israeli Society Index survey included two questions aimed at determining whether there has been a change in the attitudes and behaviors of secular Israeli Jews with respect to Jewish tradition. More precisely: the questions sought to determine whether the respondents feel there has been a change of any kind in their attitudes (actual attitudes have to be assessed via comparable questions from before and after October 7).
As expected, most respondents said that their sense of closeness to Judaism and the degree to which they engage in Jewish practices has not changed in the wake of October 7. However, both questions reveal something of the war’s polarizing effect – in this case, between two secular subgroups, but the effect is also discernible when we distinguish between the views of secular Israeli Jews generally and the views of the rest of the Israeli population.
A large majority of all secular Jews, in both of the aforementioned subgroups, say that the events of October 7 and its aftermath have not affected their sense of closeness or distance from Judaism. However, among those who did report having been affected by the events, opposite effects were found among the two secular subgroups: a larger share of the totally secular felt distanced from Judaism by October 7 and its aftermath, while a larger percentage of secular-traditional say it has brought them closer to Judaism. Notably, these findings comport with findings from other recent surveys.
For example, a survey that looked at Israel’s entire Jewish population broken down by Central Bureau of Statistics religiosity designations (a theMadad.com survey) found a disparity between the sizeable percentage of secular Jews who said that “the grave events of October 7 and the war” had distanced them from Judaism (24%) and the higher percentage of all the other groups (traditionalist, not so religious; traditionalist, religious; religious; ultra-Orthodox) who reported that the events had brought them closer to Judaism.
Also notable is that the gap between the two secular subgroups is not necessarily a matter of religiosity but is, rather, clearly linked to political orientation. A stronger left-wing orientation correlates with an increased probability that an Israeli will be “totally secular” and the likelihood of their having been distanced from Judaism by the events of October 7 and its aftermath.
A comparison of the responses of all survey participants broken down by support levels for Israel’s two centrist parties, Yesh Atid and National Unity, most of whose voters belong to the two secular subgroups, affirms this disparity – in traditional observance and with respect to the reaction to the events of October 7 and its aftermath (please note that the results do not reflect the views of all those who voted for the two parties, only the views of voters from the totally secular and secular-traditional subgroups).
This same polarizing effect, albeit at a lower level, can be seen in a question that does not pertain to general “closeness” to Judaism, but rather to engagement in “actions connected with Jewish tradition.” Only a small percentage of secular Israeli Jews, a tenth in total, say they have changed their level of tradition-observance in the aftermath of October 7, and the main shift among the totally secular is in the direction of “lesser” observance, while among the secular-traditional the more prevalent change is of “added” observance.
Secular Israeli Jews and the Diaspora
The trend once again takes on a uniform hue when the question of closeness versus distancing is posed regarding the attitudes of secular Israeli Jews toward Diaspora Jewry.
The June Israeli Society Index found, with regard to all Israeli Jews, that “against the backdrop of anti-Israel demonstrations whose tone slid into antisemitism, and growing anxiety among Diaspora Jews [regarding] a wave of antisemitism, a significant rise has been detected this year in the sense of a shared fate between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. Compared with data from previous years, the percentage of Israeli Jews who ‘strongly agree’ that all Jews have a ‘common future’ has surged. If we add those who ‘somewhat agree’ with that statement, we find that eight in ten Israeli Jews see a ‘common future’ for Israeli and Diaspora Jews.
The consensus among the secular on this statement is smaller though still amounting to 70%, and 62% among left-wing Israelis. It is even larger among all other groups.”
This month, as noted, we looked in-depth at the views of secular Israeli Jews, and the question they were asked about Diaspora Jewry was: “Have the events of October 7 and the war affected your degree of closeness or distance from Jews living outside Israel (Diaspora Jews)?” In response to this question, the majority (over 70%) said that they had grown neither closer nor more distant from Diaspora Jewry.
However, among those who said that there had been a change in their attitude, a large majority attested to a sense of having grown closer to Diaspora Jewry. In total, a fifth of all secular Israeli Jews reported a sense of increased closeness. Notably, on this question of closeness, the political orientation of secular respondents made little difference. Very similar percentages of those “growing closer” to Diaspora Jewry were found among adherents of all political camps.
JPPI’s August Israeli Society Index comprised 1345 respondents, of whom 960 self-identify as “totally secular” or “Secular-traditional.” Half of the respondents were queried via the theMadad.com panel, and half via the Midgam Panel project. The data collected was compared to findings from JPPI’s 2018 Israeli Judaism survey, which contained a number of questions about identity that were analyzed at the time by the late Professor Camil Fuchs. The present survey was conducted and analyzed by JPPI fellows Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov; Professor David Steinberg was the statistical consultant. A more detailed JPPI report on Jewish secularism in Israel