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New report from Pew Research Center provides interesting information about high number of Jews who still identify as Jewish
By BERNIE BELLAN A recent report from the Pew Research Center offers some interesting information about adult Jews in Israel and the United States. According to the report, 80% of the world’s Jews live in those two countries – which explains why there is no reporting about Jews in other countries.
Similar to the situation we reported on with respect to the Census of Canada in 2021, the Pew Report notes that “people may identify as Jewish in a multitude of ways, including ethnically, culturally, religiously or by family background. In this report, we use the term “Jewish” to mean only religious identity, because the survey questions used in the analyses ask about a person’s current religion and what religious group they were raised in (their childhood religion).”
It should be noted that the Canadian census allowed respondents to identify as Jewish both by religion and by ethnic identity. As a result, there were great disparities in the numbers who responded they were Jewish in both categories.
In a December 2023 article we noted that “Of all Winnipeg respondents only 6,700 reported that both their ethnic origin and their religion was Jewish. Yet, 10,700 people in total reported that at least one of their ethnic origins was Jewish, while 11,170 reported their religion was Jewish.”
As a result, after we did a cross-comparison of figures for both categories, we arrived at the conclusion that, at a maximum, the total possible number of individuals who identified as Jewish – either by religion or ethnicity, was 14,270. (But, when you consider, for instance, that of the 10,700 respondents in the census who reported their ethnic origin as Jewish, 1,080 reported their religion as Christian, it gives you some idea how amorphous Jewish identity is.)
The Pew Report, as noted, concentrated only on determining how many Jews in Israel and the United States reported their religion as “Jewish.”
Some of the findings of the report were:
• Most people who were raised Jewish in Israel and the U.S. still identify this way today, resulting in high Jewish retention rates in both countries – though it’s higher in Israel than in the U.S.
Leaving Judaism
• In the U.S., about a quarter of adults who were raised Jewish no longer identify as Jewish.• In Israel, fewer than 1% of adults who were raised Jewish no longer identify as such.
• Most adults who have left Judaism in both countries now are unaffiliated (i.e., they identify religiously as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”).
Entering Judaism
• Most Jewish adults in Israel and the U.S. were raised Jewish, meaning the “accession” (or entrance) rates into Judaism are fairly low in both places.
• But of the two countries, the U.S. has the higher accession rate, with 14% of Jewish Americans saying they were raised outside of Judaism, compared with just 1% of Israeli Jewish adults.
The report delved further into the question of the affiliation of individuals who said their religion was Jewish, but who no longer identify as Jewish.
• In Israel, only 1% of individuals who were raised Jewish said they are now not religiously affiliated. (The number who said they now had another religion was so low that the Pew Report gave the figure as 0. I wonder though, how “Jews for Jesus” – which has a considerable following both in Israel and the U.S. would be taken into account in reports about the number of Jews in the world? Are “Jews for Jesus” still Jewish – even if they consider themselves Jewish? It’s questions like this that make me wonder about the reliability of surveys that claim to provide credible information about how many Jews there are in the world.)
• In the U.S., however, the Pew Report noted that “17% of adults who were raised Jewish now identify as unaffiliated, while 2% now identify as Christian and 1% now identify as Muslim.”
In an earlier study, conducted in 2021 also by the Pew Research Centre, Jews were asked what were the most important aspects of their identifying as Jewish. I’ve written about that report before because I found the answers so fascinating. (I’ve noted that having a good sense of humour was considered an essential part of being Jewish by 33% of respondents, as opposed to only 3% who said that observing Jewish law was an essential part of being Jewish. But don’t tell that to the Winnipeg Council of Rabbis, who insist that the Simkin Centre serving kosher food – even when almost half its residents aren’t even Jewish, is essential to the Simkin Centre.)
Here, again, are the results of that survey:
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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.
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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel
March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.
The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.
The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.
Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.
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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say
An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.
“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.
A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
STRICT SECURITY CHECKS
Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.
Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.
An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.
“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.
“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.
Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.
Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.
NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN
Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.
Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.