Israel’s Struggle to Maintain Religious Pluralism

Israel’s founders aspired – as proclaimed in Israel’s declaration of independence – to a Jewish ingathering while assuring freedom of religion and conscience to all inhabitants. How would those mostly secular founders regard current efforts of an ultra-religious bloc within the governing coalition to advance religious orthodoxy to the detriment of alternative streams of Jewish identification? Here’s the perspective from the vantage point of a secular, non-observant Israeli citizen who associates with the conservative movement in order to perpetuate Jewish culture and tradition.

Even though Israel’s Jewish socialist founders were mostly not religious practitioners, they did accord a significant status to the orthodox movement. David Ben Gurion in 1948 declared that a religious “status quo” would prevail under which matters of citizens’ personal status (such as marriage, divorce, conversion, and burial) would be controlled by the two chief rabbinates (Ashkenazi and Sephardic) and their associated rabbinical courts. Civil marriage has never been recognized and many Israelis therefore marry abroad to avoid the yoke of the rabbinical courts over divorce and child support.

Roughly 40% of Israeli Jews identify as secular and 35% as masorati (traditional, but non-observant). The ultra-orthodox Haredim and the orthodox nationalists comprise the remainder. But the ultra-orthodox influence has been decidedly disproportionate to its numbers and hostile to the interests of non-orthodox Jews.

One impact of the ultra-orthodox bloc is in the field of education. The State has always funded parallel secular and religious school networks. According to law, all educational institutions were supposed to include a core secular curriculum (such as math, reading comprehension, and English) critical to equipping people to function in the modern world. Yet under the current governing coalition, the Department of Education is in the hands of ultra-orthodox sources and they have zero interest in enforcing the core curriculum mandate. Instead, the ultra-religious Haredi bloc (Shas and United Torah parties) has engineered a massive budget injection of an extra $250,000,000 for the yeshivas engaged in full-time torah study.

Beyond generous fiscal support for yeshivas, the ultra-religious bloc continues to press for legislation effectively extending the military service exemption for those pursuing full-time torah studies. This push comes at a moment when the IDF’s commander-in-chief states that the IDF (operating on multiple fronts) is “collapsing” absent an addition of at least 15,000 soldiers. Continued draft exemption for the Haredim extends the unconscionable burden of reserve duty borne by tens of thousands of secular soldiers, effectively disrupting their work, studies, and family life. To say nothing of flaunting the prior high court (Bagatz) ruling that an exemption for yeshiva students violates principles of equality embodied in established statutory provisions. When Ben Gurion agreed to the yeshiva draft exemption, there were 400 torah scholars involved; today, there are over 50,000.

Another project within the coalition’s efforts to promote orthodox interests is imposition of sabbath observance. The long-prevailing “status quo” is that public transportation does not operate on shabbat, though Haifa and Tel Aviv have been exceptions allowing shuttles to the beach areas. When a large new shopping center opened recently north of Tel Aviv, Netanyahu government officials denounced the planned commercial activity on Saturdays even though the related municipalities did not object. So far, the shopping center remains operative on Saturday.

Even the IDF has been impacted by the push for sabbath observance and accommodation of orthodox practices. Four border patrol officers were recently disciplined, including a 7-day lockup, for igniting a barbecue on a Saturday. And female IDF soldiers are sometimes required to keep away from the small number of Haredim soldiers serving in separate units called Hashmonaim units. In a planned operation in southern Lebanon (before the current ceasefire), a female crew of engineering specialists was told to steer clear of a Hashmonaim unit in the emplacement where the operation was to take place. Rather than serve shoulder to shoulder with their orthodox comrades, the female engineering crew remained at a distance. The comfort of the Hasidim soldiers was more critical than the efficiency of the operation or the sensibilities of the female soldiers. (Yediot Achronot, 4/20/26, p. 17)

The ultra-religious bloc goes well beyond advancement of orthodox religious practice in its support of the Netanyahu coalition’s ultra-nationalist agenda. For example, the Haredim regularly back coalition moves to constrict judicial review of governmental conduct because the Haredim view Bagatz as a “jew-hating” institution. That perspective stems from the high court’s occasional interventions to protect non-orthodox Jews from disadvantage.

Several illustrations (beyond the military draft exemption issue) exist of Bagatz judicial expressions alienating the Haredim. Bagatz previously ruled that public mikvahs could not exclude non-orthodox women. And Bagatz had endorsed the idea that women ought to be permitted to read torah at a designated edge of the western wall (kotel). By contrast, Haredi members of the coalition have proposed legislation to punish (by as much as 7 years in jail) anyone who engages in western wall prayer in a way violative of rabbinical strictures. Again, the ultra-orthodox continue to promote a narrow theocracy contrary to zionist founders’ recognition of varying streams of religious and cultural Judaism. Israel’s maintenance of religious pluralism may well depend on the outcome of the next elections due in October 2026.

Efforts of the ultra-religious bloc to disadvantage the non-orthodox sector are particularly galling and abrasive because of the governmental actors’ utter disdain for non-observant Jews like myself. From the Haredi perspective, non-observant Jews are heretics who are undermining “true” Judaism. Moshe Gafni, a leading figure within a faction of the United Torah orthodox party, has long blamed America’s conservative and reform Jewish movements for having “destroyed” Judaism in the United States. Gafni’s derision applies as well to Israelis who identify as secular, conservative, or reform Jews.