At the end of 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics, among other data, published the religious profile of Israeli Jews according to their self-definition: 45% defined themselves as secular, about 25% as traditional, about 16% as religious and very religious, and 14% as ultra-Orthodox.
It is easy to identify the religious and the ultra-Orthodox, since they have a kippah, they often say "God willing" and do not travel on Shabbat. But what do we know about secular people by definition, and how do we distinguish them from those who define themselves as traditional? And what is the true power of secularism in life itself, and not just in the media outrage over the chametz law, a law that allowed hospitals to politely ask visitors not to bring chametz into its premises during the seven days of Passover? Oh, how the forearms of secularism trembled. Or not really.
In an article in Haaretz from the beginning of the month, the reporter lamented the "kosher dictatorship" because of which non-kosher animals and non-kosher recipes disappeared from newspaper food columns and cooking programs on television. There was some sorrow over the opening of kosher restaurants by famous chefs such as Haim Cohen and Israel Aharoni. The lament has something to base itself on: in 2007, Mapa reported that only about a third of restaurants in Israel are kosher. Jerusalem stood out for its exceptionality – for it the attitude was the opposite. In 2021, the Israel Democracy Institute reported a turnaround: 66% of all catering businesses in Israel are certified kosher.
Seder Night 2022/23 at the Ben Israel family in Kiryat Tivon, photo: Herzi Halevi
After the issue of raising and selling pigs scored all the fundamental struggles – through the High Court of Justice of course – and also taking into account the Christian population in Israel, pork consumption in Israel is among the lowest in the world, dropping from 2.3 kg per capita per year in 2014 to 1.4 kg per capita per year. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, only about half a million Israelis eat pork. Given culinary freedom, the vast majority of Israeli Jews voluntarily chose to abstain from eating pork.
And that's not all. It can be argued that the kosher trend in restaurants is part of their economic consideration to expand the circle of customers. But even in their personal lives, most Jews chose to keep kosher, at a much higher rate than the secular population. This week, the Israel Democracy Institute published another collection of data on religion and state in Israel. 69% of those surveyed reported that they adhere to kashrut: some according to halacha, and some according to kashrut principles in personal adjustments.
In other areas, too, practice does not express the fundamental struggles. Although same-sex couples married abroad have been eligible to register as married in Israel since 2006, only 2019,1 couples had taken advantage of this right until 130. Regular civil marriage is also not in great demand, even though it is not a big hassle, and despite the fact that this marriage is recognized in Israel. Only 5.6% of couples who chose this option were Jews who could have married in Israel as well. Some secular Israelis prefer to run a joint household without marriage rather than get married in a civil marriage abroad, and the rate is rising steadily, but ultimately reaches only 10% of secular couples. But the reason for this may not only be religious, but a devaluation of the status of marriage in secular society. Marry less, divorce more.
Of the 57,4 conversions in the past two decades, only a few hundred chose Reform or Conservative conversions, even though these are less demanding than Orthodox conversions. And at death the cemetery is Jewish, as is a funeral. Only 3.2021 per cent chose civil burial in <>.
The secular struggle was successful after success, and after freedom of principle was achieved, most of the public adhered to some Jewish practices, even if not all of them exactly according to halacha. Not content with feeling Jewish, he also wants to behave Jewish.
True, there are those who have somewhat forgotten what it means to be Jewish. According to data from the Israeli Congress, as of 2022, only 16% of left-wing voters fast on Yom Kippur, but how many left-wing voters are there already? Nevertheless, most of the struggles against religion and against the Jewish character of the State of Israel come from this wing, even though the Jewish public as a whole, even if it travels on Shabbat, does not keep touch, and may even occasionally demonstrate against religious coercion, nevertheless behaves as if it were a Jew living in a Jewish state where people gather for a Passover Seder, marry through the rabbinate, and when traveling to their parents for a Shabbat meal do not mix meat and milk. Speaking of Passover, according to last year's Maariv survey, 72% of the house is by choice.
This kind of Judaism, which is free and natural and relaxed, could threaten the two minorities at the extremes: the ultra-Orthodox and the turbo-secular, who insist on secularism with no Jewish trait and who will cry out "Scandal!" if a segregated prayer is held in Tel Aviv in Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Square. That's what City Councilman Reuven Ladiansky did last week. He also demanded that "the organizers be fined and brought to justice, in the most severe way possible." But how Nathan Alterman wrote about Tel Aviv in another context: "History has no stranger in it. There is no seriousness in it, no weight," adding, affectionately from a Tel Aviv resident: "There is some grace in it, which another has none."
Kiddush and Shabbat candles (illustration), photo: Coco
Of course, Alterman passed away in 1970 and never imagined that Tel Aviv's grace would ripen into a revulsion toward any Jewish trait. But Israel is not Tel Aviv. The city's fundamental struggles are not the struggles of the general public, and its way of life is not the Israeli way of life.
Israel is a Jewish state, because it is the choice of its citizens. True, the chametz law provoked childish protests such as a pizza party on the sidelines of Tel Hashomer Hospital, the women of the Western Wall continue to devotedly harass worshippers at the Western Wall every Rosh Chodesh, the red slaves decorate the demonstrations of opponents of the legal reform, and no one dares to say that the State of Israel is a Jewish state without signing "and democratic" as a warning against the dangers of Judaism.
But the State of Israel was established, among other things, so that Jews could live their daily lives as Jews. It is good to see that the vast majority freely and democratically choose to take advantage of this privilege.
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