I would like to begin with a question. Why do so many Israeli Jews who identify as secular still fast on Yom Kippur, still feel a deep attachment to the Jewish people, and still pass that identity to their children, without campaigns, without membership drives, without constant concern about “continuity?” I am talking about secular Jews, so the answer is not that they are more religious.

Decades of survey data from the Israel Democracy Institute show that a majority of Israeli Jews who call themselves secular still participate in core Jewish practices, especially those tied to the calendar. The hilonim (secular Israelis) who drive on Shabbat and resist religious authority will still sit at a Seder, mark Yom Kippur in some way, and live within a recognizably Jewish rhythm of time.

They do this not because they have made a series of conscious religious commitments, but because Jewish life in Israel is built into the society itself. The calendar is Jewish, the public language is Hebrew, and national life moves to the rhythm of Jewish holidays and memory. Shared civic experiences reinforce a sense of collective story. Jewish identity is not something one has to opt into. It is there by default.

This is a fundamentally different reality from the one American Jews experience, and it is the deeper context behind everything we have been discussing in this series of blogs. The borrowed definition of Judaism as a religion, the hierarchies of authenticity we impose on one another, the Jews who feel they need to........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)