What Does the Public Really Think About Religion and State in Israel?

Since its establishment in 2009, Hiddush has published a unique annual report called the "Religion and State Index", which is based on a comprehensive survey and a large representative sample of the adult Jewish public in Israel. Its findings, which are published every year just before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year [you can find the 2022 index report here], have been demonstrating for years that the politicians' cynical statements about the public's support for the "status quo" on matters of religion and state (and especially the false declarations by the speakers of the current coalition that the results of the last elections prove the public's preference for a traditional and religious country ) are completely baseless. A large and consistent majority expresses support for the principle of freedom of religion and conscience guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and its opposition to every element of religious coercion and excess privileges granted to the ultra-Orthodox sector.

23/04/2023 14:31

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Support for freedom of religion

This week an important layer was added to the knowledge base that demonstrates the public's desire for religious freedom and equality - the Israel Democracy Institute’s Biennial Statistical Report on Religion and State. We recommend perusal of the comprehensive findings, which were based on both field data collection and analysis and an accompanying public opinion poll. [You can read more here.]

The Israel Democracy Institute’s report shows that the Jewish public “votes with its feet” and there is a sharp decline in recent years in the number of couples who turn to the State Orthodox Rabbinate, as illustrated in the graph below:

(Source: Israel Democracy Institute’s Biennial Statistical Report on Religion and State)

The report documents both the corresponding increase in those years of Jewish couples choosing to go abroad to marry in a civil ceremony [and following the landmark ruling we won in the Supreme Court it will now be easier for them to choose a civil marriage abroad since they will be able to do so without leaving the country and without the expenses involved!] and also in the number of couples who choose cohabitation without marriage at all, or with a secular or religious marriage ceremony that is not recognized by the State.

Another area covered by the report and which Hiddush has also been working on for years, is the issue of burial in general and civil burial in particular. The report illustrates the disgraceful attitude of the Ministry of Religious Services, which was entrusted with the implementation of the 1996 Right to Alternative Civil Burial Law.

Source: Hiddush Religion & State Index 2022 Conducted by the Smith Institute

The Ministry has done everything in its power during the 25 years since the enactment of the law to sabotage and delay its implementation.

The State Comptroller has described this at length and in the past few

A large and consistent majority expresses support for the principle of freedom of religion and conscience guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and its opposition to every element of religious coercion and excess privileges granted to the ultra-Orthodox sector."

years Hiddush has been active in the legal arena to correct this reality.

The report of the Israel Democracy Institute points on the one hand to the very small percentage of civil burials that took place among religious Jewish burials: a slow increase from 1.8% in 2000 to 4.3% in 2021. On the other hand, the report points to the findings of the survey they conducted, according to which 12% of the Jewish population expresses preference for civil burial for themselves, when the time comes. Among the secular public, the percentage of those who prefer a civil burial climbs to 24%!

In Hiddush’s 2022 Religion and State Index, we examined this question on an additional level as well, since we hypothesized that a large part of the public is unaware of the possibility of civil burial. The findings of our survey, which we commissioned from the Smith Research Institute are instructive indeed and show even more strongly how the Ministry of Religious Services has betrayed the public trust and the responsibility entrusted to it. According to the findings of the Index, the majority of the Jewish public [60%] are not at all aware of the existence of this alternative. It emerged from the survey that at this stage, with the majority of the public unaware of civil burial and it not being promoted by the state, 57% prefer Orthodox burial, while 43% express a preference for civil burial.

The most significant data is that while 38% of the secular public responded that they were unaware of the existence of the right to civil burial, when presented with this alternative in the survey - expressed support for it. This is in addition to the 37% who responded that they are aware of it and support it. Twenty-five percent of the secular public oppose civil burial, and most of them [21%] heard about it for the first time as part of the survey.

Source: Hiddush Religion & State Index 2022 Conducted by the Smith Institute