Polls Give Conflicting View of Religion in Israel

A WIN/Gallup poll was released this week showing, among other things, that Israel is one of the least religiously observant countries in the world, with 30% of those polled describing themselves as “religious” and 65% saying they were specifically “not religious” or specifically atheist. However, a poll taken by the Israel Democracy Institute in 2009 indicates that a large majority of Israelis continue to keep Jewish cultural traditions and most retained at least a theoretical belief in God. “Eighty percent (of Israelis) believe in God,” said Prof. Yedidia Stern, the vice president of research at IDI. “Are they secular or religious? If we are speaking about [halachic observance], then many are not. But if you ask if they believe God [is] relevant to Israeli life and they believe in it, then Israelis are a very religious kind of country…there are no black-and-white answers in Israel.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics says 9.4% of Israelis define themselves as ultra-Orthodox while 10% as Orthodox, 13.6% as traditional religious, 22.6% as traditional nonreligious and 43% as secular. Unofficial estimates have Israel’s Messianic Jewish population from 15-20,000.