In August 2023, Agam Labs, directed by Hebrew University researcher Nimrod Nir, surveyed thousands of Israelis on a number of topics, including their political preferences. Less than two months later, the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, marked a political cataclysm for the country. In its wake, the lab has continually surveyed some 2,000 Israelis, including participants from the original study.

According to Nir, while October 7 and the ensuing wars have had a huge impact on Israeli society at large, the religious community — a mix of Religious Zionism and Haredim — was probably least affected by these events politically.

“Their ideology and their political identification are attached to their religious beliefs, which are much more stable,” Nir said.

In the last election, held in November 2022, the party called Religious Zionism ran on a joint ticket with Otzma Yehudit and Noam, with all three explicitly touting their religious identity. Otzma Yehudit is the ideological heir to the banned Kach movement founded in the 1970s by American-Israeli rabbi Meir Kahane,who espoused racist anti-Arab views. Noam, which promotes an anti-LGBT agenda, has deep ties to prominent yeshivot of the so-called hardal faction within Religious Zionism, which combines a quasi-ultra-Orthodox lifestyle with hardline Zionism. Altogether, the combined slate won 14 seats, with its three factions formally separating once the elections were over.

In the past few years, Religious Zionism head Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir, along with other coalition legislators from the Religious Zionist community, have become the sector’s most recognizable faces.

Their political agendas have largely focused on promoting West Bank settlements, in Smotrich’s case, and asserting Jewish power within and beyond Israel’s internationally recognized borders, in Ben Gvir’s.

However, to what extent do the religious hard-right politicians actually represent this Israeli demographic’s political and ideological identity?

Nir maintained that in the past few years, despite the devastation brought on by the multifront war, the issue that has concerned Israelis the most is the tension between religion and state.

“Until six or seven years ago, the ideological and political division between right and left in Israel had to do with foreign policy issues, especially Israel-Palestine,” Nir said. “Now everything is more internal. [The fracture] is about religion and state and power struggles within.”

“Even in the middle of the Iran war, over 60% of respondents said the greatest threats to Israel’s existence were internal, not external,” he added. “They were more afraid of polarization than war.”

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Surveys from both Agam Labs and other organizations highlight the ideological gap regarding religion and state between groups with different levels of religiosity.

According to a 2025 Hiddush Religion and State Report, only 17% of religious respondents favored the separation of religion and state, while 83% opposed it.

“Half or more of the [Religious Zionist] community has been going in the direction of radicalization,” according to demographer Sergio DellaPergola, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

An Agam Labs survey from earlier this year shows that, when given several options to describe what the character of Israel should be, 26% of religious respondents preferred the country be run according to halacha, or Jewish law, compared to 0.9% of secular respondents. Another 53% of religious respondents said the country should be Jewish and democratic, but the Jewish aspect should outweigh the democratic one.

Only about 15% of religious participants........

© The Times of Israel