Israel has been a Jewish-majority country since its founding in 1948, and its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities โ including some groups within the Jewish community โ has persisted as a hotly debated topic throughout the nationโs history.
While significant shares of Israeli Arabs and Jews are optimistic about the prospect of a two-state solution, those who would live in this new independent state โ the Arabs currently in the Palestinian territories โ are less optimistic about it.
Nearly all Jews in the United States and Israel say they are proud to be Jewish, and strong majorities in both countries say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the two Jewish communities do not always agree about what it means to be Jewish.
The two largest organized Jewish denominations in America โ Reform and Conservative Judaism โ together have about five times as many U.S. members as the historically much older, more strictly observant Orthodox community. But the Reform and Conservative movements have a far smaller footprint in Israel.
Key takeaways from Pew Research Center’s comprehensive study of religion in Israel, where there are major divisions not only between Jews and Arabs, but also within the major subgroups of Israeli Jews.