Bernard Avishai has a really excellent essay (PDF) based on survey data (summarized by Haaretz here) from the Macro Center for Political Economic Research. It’s a long read, but worth every bit of it. A highlight:
Approximately 40% of young Israeli Jews believe (about a third, strongly) that the state should not offer civil marriage. One may infer that this very substantial group considers it natural, or at least defensible, that the state make intermarriage very difficult, or that halachic law governing personal status be the law of the land, or that rabbinic authority be a part of state authority, or all three; that this negative attitude toward civil marriage is a proxy for skepticism toward the rights of citizens in civil society more generally, and reflects the proportion of Israeli Jewish youth that one can characterize as religiously Orthodox to some significant degree. Not coincidentally, this 40% turns out to be roughly the proportion that has little or no faith in the Israeli judiciary, which is widely considered to be the country’s most consistent defender of secular rights.
…
About half of American Jewish young people marry non-Jews; all Jews take civil marriage completely for granted. One searches in vain for any recent poll that bothers to ask whether young Jews favor the separation of religion and state in America. The response would be near 100%. Nor do Jews tend to feel comfortable with American counterparts of Israeli theocrats. According to a recent Gerstein Agne poll, American Jews oppose, by nearly 80-20%, forming even tactical alliances (to support Israel diplomatically, say) with evangelical Christian groups. I mean rightist American groups whose attitudes toward religion and state roughly mirror those of the 40% of young Israelis who oppose civil marriage.
These observations are particularly relevant. Taking a closer look at the emerging differences in Israeli Jewish identity and American Jewish identity is vital to informing any kind of activism relating to Israel. It’s reassuring to see some actual data on this issue.
