Profile of Religion Pluralism In Israel Summer Institute, Department of Religion University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB)

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Profile of Religion Pluralism In IsraelSummer
Institute, Department of ReligionUniversity of
California Santa Barbara(UCSB)

• Khalid Sindawi
• Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Israel
• July 17, 2009

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• The State of Israel was established on May
  14,1948, Israel is a country in Western Asia
  located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean
  Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in
  the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on
  the southwest, and contains geographically
  diverse features within its relatively small
  area. Israel is the world's only predominantly
  Jewish state with a population of about 7.4
  million people, of which approximately 5.62
  million are Jewish. The largest ethnic minority
  group is the segment denominated as Arab citizens
  of Israel, while minority religious groups
  include Muslims, Christians, Druze, and others,
  most of which are found within the Arab segment.

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• Religion in Israel
• According to the Israel Central Bureau of
  Statistics, the population in 2007 was 76.1
  Jewish, 16.2 Muslim, 2.1 Christian, and 1.6
  Druze, with the remaining 4.0 not classified by
  religion.

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• Religious self-definition
• As of 2007, 10 of Israeli Jews defined
  themselves as Haredim an additional 10 as
  "religious" 14 as "religious-traditionalists" 
  22 as "non-religious-traditionalists" (not
  strictly adhering to Jewish law or halakha) and
  44 as "secular" (Hebrew ??????????, Hiloni).
  Among all Israeli Jews, 65 believe in God and
  85 participate in a Passover seder. However,
  other sources indicate that between 15 and 37
  of Israelis identify themselves as either
  agnostics or atheists.
• Israelis tend not to align themselves with a
  movement of Judaism (such as Reform Judaism or
  Conservative Judaism) but instead tend to define
  their religious affiliation by degree of their
  religious practice.
• As of 2007, 82.7 of the Arab Israeli were
  Muslims, 8.4 were Druze, and 8.3 were
  Christians. Just over 80 of Christians are
  Arabs, and the majority of the remaining
  immigrants are from the former Soviet Union who
  immigrated with a Jewish relative. About 81 of
  Christian births are to Arab women.

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• Judaism in Israel
• Most citizens in the State of Israel are Jewish,
  and most Israeli Jews practice Judaism in some
  form. In the last two centuries the largest
  Jewish community in the world, in the United
  States, has divided into a number of Jewish
  denominations. The largest and most influential
  of these denominations are Orthodox Judaism,
  Reform Judaism, and Conservative Judaism. All of
  the above denominations exist, to varying
  degrees, in the State of Israel. Nevertheless,
  Israelis tend to classify Jewish identity in ways
  that are strikingly different from American Jewry.

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• The secular-traditional spectrum
• Most Jewish Israelis classify themselves as
  "secular" (hiloni) or as "traditional" (masorti).
  The former term is more popular among Israeli
  families of European origin, and the latter term
  among Israeli families of Oriental origin (i.e.
  Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa). The
  latter term, as commonly used, has nothing to do
  with the official "Masorti" (Conservative
  Judaism) movement in the State of Israel. There
  is ambiguity in the ways these two terms are
  used. They often overlap, and they cover an
  extremely wide range of ideologies and levels of
  observance.

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• Many Jewish Israelis feel that being Israeli
  (living among Jews, speaking Hebrew, in the Land
  of Israel), is in itself a sufficient expression
  of Judaism without any religious observances.
  This conforms to some classical secular-Zionist
  ideologies of Israeli-style civil religion. While
  many in the Jewish diaspora who otherwise
  consider themselves as secular will attend a
  synagogue or at least fast on Yom Kippur (the
  holiest Jewish holiday), this is not as common
  among secular Israelis. In 2007, a poll by the
  Israeli Democracy Institute found that only 27
  of Israeli Jews say that they keep the Sabbath,
  while 53 said they do not keep it at all. The
  poll also found that 50 of the respondents would
  give up shopping on the Sabbath as long as public
  transportation were kept running and leisure
  activities continued to be permitted however
  only 38 believed that such a compromise would
  reduce the tensions between the secular and
  religious communities.

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• Because the terms "secular" and "traditional" not
  are strictly defined, published estimates of the
  percentage of Israeli Jews who are considered
  "traditional" range from 32 to 55. Estimates of
  the percentage of "secular" Jews vary even more
  widely from 20 to 80 of the Israeli
  population.

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Chief RabbinateGreat Synagogue in Jerusalem,
seat of the Chief Rabbinate
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• The Community Structure of the Arabs of Structure
• The community structure of the Arabs of Israel is
  the result of a prolonged historical development
  that has impressed its mark upon the countries of
  the entire Middle East through two basic factors
  that can still be discerned today
• The communal split, resulting from the sectarian
  factions in Islam and Christianity, over a long
  period of time and due to various causes that
  lessened in their inherent importance over the
  generations, but the outcome of which has been
  preserved in the mosaic pattern of religious
  sects created in the region.
• The communal organization with special
  independent formations that were given expression
  within the framework of the Ottoman Empire in the
  millet system according to which the Muslim
  regime granted certain communities judicial
  autonomy in matters of personal status, the
  management of the waqf (sacred trust funds) and
  in the organization of religious institutions and
  the justice system.

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• The Numerical Ratio
• During the Mandate period the Muslims were
  already a recognizable majority. In the first
  census that was conducted under British rule in
  1922, there were 668,258 Arabs in the
  Palestain/Land of Israel, of which 88 were
  Muslim, 11 were Christians and only 1 were
  Druze and other denominations. This ratio
  remained constant until the Arab-Israeli war
  1948, by which time owing to Jewish immigration,
  the ratio of the Arab population decreased from
  89 in 1922 to 68 in 1947.
• The communal-religious cross-section of the
  minorities in Israel is expressed in the
  following lines
• Muslims about 1,189,600
• Christians about 150,300
• Druze about 118,600.

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• Islam in Israel
• Muslims about 1,189,600
• Mainly in the Galilee, in the small triangle,
  in Jerusalem and among the Bedouin tribes in the
  Negev. Most Muslims in Israel are Sunni Arabs.
  Israeli Muslims are free to teach Islam to their
  children in their own schools, and there are a
  number of Islamic universities and colleges in
  Israel.

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Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
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• Christianity in Israel
• Christians about 150,300
• The Greek-Catholic community about 24.6
• The Greek-Orthodox community about 33
• The Roman Catholic community about 8.4
• The Maronite community about
  4
• Others (Protestant sects, Armenians,
  Coptic-Ethiopian etc.) about 20. The data also
  covers the Christian communities in Jerusalem.

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• The Christians
• The Christian population in Israel do not
  constitute a uniform pattern. It is split up into
  various communities that keep to their
  independent framework and even within themselves
  contain a varied spectrum of communities,
  religious orders and sects.
• In the first years after the establishment of the
  State, they managed to acquire significant power
  far beyond their demographic value. They
  constituted a majority in three large urban
  centers of the Arab population Nazareth, Shfaram
  and Haifa that were almost entirely emptied of
  their Muslim elite that had been uprooted during
  the fighting.
• Christians are presently the smallest religious
  group in Israel. Most Christians living
  permanently in Israel are Arabs or have come from
  other countries to live and work mainly in
  churches or monasteries, which have long
  histories in the land.

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• A great paradox about the areas of Israel and its
  surroundings is that even though according to
  Christian teachings it is where Jesus was born,
  lived, and died (according to Roman Catholic and
  Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Church of the
  Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is the place where
  Jesus died and was eventually buried -- making
  Jerusalem one of Christianity's holiest sites).
• Most Christians in Israel belong primarily to
  branches of the Eastern Orthodox Churches that
  oversee a variety of churches, monasteries,
  seminaries, and religious institutions all over
  the land, particularly in Jerusalem. In the
  nineteenth century the Russian Empire constituted
  itself the guardian of the interests of
  Christians living in the Holy Land, and even
  today large amounts of Jerusalem real estate
  (including the site of the Knesset building) are
  owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of
  Jerusalem.

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• In modern times, one of the most vocal and active
  sectors of Christianity in support of Israel has
  come from the Protestant churches that support
  Evangelicalism. Each year hundreds of thousands
  of Christian Evangelicals come as tourists on
  private and organized trips to see Israel for
  themselves, to be inspired by "the land of the
  Bible", and in the process benefiting the local
  economy as well.
• Nine churches are officially recognised under
  Israel's confessional system, for the
  self-regulation of status issues, such as
  marriage and divorce. These are the Eastern
  Orthodox, Roman Catholic (Latin rite),
  Gregorian-Armenian, Armenian Catholic, Syriac
  Catholic, Chaldean (Uniate), Melkite (Greek
  Catholic), Ethiopian Orthodox, Maronite and
  Syriac Orthodox churches. There are more informal
  arrangements with other churches such as the
  Anglican Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of
  Latter-day Saints.
• In recent years, the Christian population in
  Israel has increased significantly by the
  immigration of foreign workers from a number of
  countries. Numerous churches have opened in Tel
  Aviv, in particular.

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Nazareth, Church of the Annunciation
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• Other religious minorities
• Druze
• Druze who follow their own gnostic religion.
  During the population register after the
  establishment of the State, 14,500 Druze were
  listed, constituting 9 of the minority
  population. They live mainly in the Western
  Galilee and on Mount Carmel and today they number
  nearly 118,600 about 9.5 of the minority
  population, and 1.8 of the entire population in
  Israel.
• The Druze live in 18 settlements in Israel
  mainly in the Haifa area, Acre and Peki'in and
  only five villages are unmixed with the entire
  population belonging to the Druze community.

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• The Ahmads
• Ahmadiyya is a new sect in Islam, founded at the
  end of the 19th century in the Punjab in India.
  Ahmadiyya sees itself as a world religion. On
  March 17, 1928 the Center of the Ahmadi
  Delegation to the Countries of the Middle East
  transferred from the city of Damascus in Syria to
  Haifa.
• The adherents of this community in Israel are
  1000 in number, and are concentrated in Kafr
  Kababir, on one of the western slopes of the
  Carmel. Two minaret towers rise up on the
  mountain opposite the seafront.

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Ahmadi Mosque Kababir- Haifa
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• Bahá'í
• The Bahá'í Faith has its administrative centre in
  Haifa on land it has owned since Bahá'u'lláh's
  imprisonment in Acre in the early 1870s by the
  Ottoman Empire. Pilgrims from all over the world
  visit for short periods of time. Apart from the
  circa six hundred volunteer staff, Bahá'ís do not
  live or preach in Israel.

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Seat of the Universal House of Justice
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Bahá'í Gardens-Haifa
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• Buddhism
• Israel has 32,000 Buddhists, most of whom
  practice Tibetan Buddhism.
• Hinduism
• The small Hindu community in Israel is mostly
  made up of representatives of the International
  Society for Krishna Consciousness.
• Ethnic Minority
• The Circassians
• The Circassians are Sunni Muslims, but are not
  Arab in nationality. They came originally from
  the Caucasian Mountains in the 19th century.
  Thousands of Circassian refugees fled after the
  defeat of the rebellion of the Caucasian peoples
  in the 1860s. Two villages were founded in this
  period in the Land of Israel
• Rihaniya in the Upper Galilee, north of Safed.
• Kafr Kama in the Lower Galilee, near the Kfar
  Tavor-Kinneret Highway.

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• POPULATION IN ISRAEL, BY RELIGION
• Thousands
• Average population Population at end of year
• Druze Christians Moslems Jews Grand total
• 92.8 159.9 797.2 4,495.1 5,544.9
  1995
• 93.4 122.0 825.5 4,569.2 5,685.1
  1996
• 95.6 124.7 853.9 4,658.8 5,828.9
  1997
• 97.8 127.4 883.9 4,743.4 5,970.7
  1998
• 100.1 130.3 916.9 4,829.0 6,125.3
  1999
• 102.5 133.4 952.0 4,914.1 6,289.2
  2000
• 105.0 136.8 987.3 4,990.2 6,439.0
  2001
• 107.4 139.4 1,021.4 5,059.6 6,570.0
  2002
• 109.6 141.4 1,055.4 5,129.8 6,689.7
  2003
• 111.9 143.4 1,090.0 5,201.5 6,809.0
  2004
• 114.1 145.4 1,124.0 5,275.7 6,930.1
  2005
• 116.4 147.8 1,156.9 5,353.6 7,053.7
  2006
• 118.6 150.3 1,189.6 5,435.8 7,180.1
  2007

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• Bibliography
• Leibman, Charles S. Religious and Secular
  Conflict and Accommodation Between Jews in
  Israel. AVICHAI, 1990.
• Leibman, Charles S. and Elihu Katz, eds. The
  Jewishness of Israelis Responses to the Guttman
  Report. SUNY Press, 1997.
• Mazie, Steven V. Israel's Higher Law Religion
  and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State.
  Lexington Books, 2006.