By Micah Halpern
I've Been Thinking:
It is the eve of Yom Kippur and Israel is preparing for the fast day.
61% of Israelis have declared that they are going to fast on Yom Kippur, 38% have said that they will not fast and 1% did not respond at all. The poll was conducted by YNET.com and by Bina, the movement for social change. They polled 500 people, with a standard deviation of 4.4%.
Fasting on Yom Kippur is a religious act. Does that mean that over 60% of the population in Israel is religiously observant? It does not. The number of religiously observant Israeli Jews is closer to 20% of the country.
The reason for the 40% disparity is simple to understand. Israel is a Jewish society. Jewish life is the foundation of the State. It's that simple. And when you understand that, you can also understand why it is that so many Israelis sit down to Shabbat dinner every Friday night.
Israel is a society where secular Israelis are not really secular. In Israel, secularism is infused with religious undertones.
Micah@MicahHalpern.com
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