A 5-ton stone from Jerusalem’s Western Wall, dating back over 2,000 years, has been placed on display at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport. Originally part of the retaining wall surrounding the Temple Mount during King Herod’s reign, the stone fell during the Roman destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE.

Previously exhibited at Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, the boulder was recently moved as part of the year-long exhibition, “The Eternity of Israel.” Similar stones from the historic site are housed at the President’s Residence, the Israel Museum and other national institutions.

The exhibit, coordinated by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Israeli Heritage Ministry, is strategically positioned near the departures area. Alongside the are artifacts such as a Hasmonean coin hoard, ancient arrowheads and archaeological evidence of biblical figures. Additionally, a box for notes—later placed in the actual Western Wall—allows travelers a final prayer before departure.

Despite the exhibit’s historical and emotional significance, the relocation of the stone has sparked controversy among religious authorities. Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz and Israel’s Chief Rabbinate have demanded the stone’s return to its original site, citing its sacred status.

“The Western Wall stones are sacred, and with all the desire to showcase Jewish history and Israel’s heritage, the Western Wall stones should not be removed for this purpose,” Rabinowitz wrote in a letter to Heritage Ministry officials. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Kalman Ber reinforced the sentiment, stating that such stones should not be treated as museum artifacts. The chief rabbis are expected to issue a formal declaration on the matter.

The IAA, however, remains firm in its decision, noting that the stone was previously displayed at the Knesset without controversy. It emphasized the exhibition’s role in highlighting Jewish resilience over millennia.

“It is right and proper that the Temple Mount stone be displayed in a dignified manner in the exhibition, which showcases the resilience of our people and their ability to overcome any obstacle throughout 3,000 years of history,” the authority stated.

As Israel prepares for the busy travel season with 1.8 million passengers expected through April, the display is likely to be the country’s most-viewed exhibition. For many travelers, the Western Wall stone evokes deep emotions.

“We were really surprised to see the stone here, and it is very moving,” said Dafna Aminov from Petah Tikva. “When we leave Israel, it is important to never forget where we came from and where we are coming back to,” added her husband, Ilan.

For others, the stone’s presence at the airport is a profound reminder of their heritage. “There is nothing like stones from our history,” said Dani Alon from Kfar Saba.

While debate over the stone’s relocation continues, its presence at the airport has already left a strong impression on travelers. As one passenger put it, “Sometimes we visit the Kotel, but this time the Kotel came to us.”

The Israeli military conducted a targeted strike on Thursday morning against Hezbollah operatives transporting weapons in Southern Lebanon.

According to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces, the attack occurred in the Yahmor area.

Separately, one person was reported dead following a suspected Israeli drone strike overnight in the Lebanese town of Maaroub, near Tyre. The strike reportedly hit a vehicle traveling on a main road, according to local officials and media sources. Lebanon’s Health Ministry confirmed the fatality but did not release the victim’s identity.

Media outlets affiliated with Hezbollah acknowledged the strike but did not immediately provide further details. However, Hezbollah-linked networks later reported that Hassan Sabra, a Hezbollah commander from the village of Al-Qantara, had been killed by Israeli forces.

Overnight Monday, the IDF killed top Hezbollah terrorist Hassan Kamal Halawi near Nabatieh in Southern Lebanon.

On Saturday, the Israeli Air Force intercepted three rockets fired from Lebanon at the Galilee town of Metula. Three additional rockets fell short and did not cross into Israeli territory.

Syrian media report IDF strike in Latakia

In neighboring Syria, state media reported multiple Israeli airstrikes on the coastal city of Latakia overnight Wednesday. As many as nine separate explosions were documented in various parts of the city, including its port, according to the reports. Syria’s official news agency, SANA, confirmed the attacks and said authorities were still assessing the extent of the damage and casualties.

The reported strikes come after Israel on Tuesday morning attacked the Tadmur base and the nearby T-4 airbase in central Syria.

The target of the strikes were “military capabilities that remained” following the overthrow of the Assad regime by Al-Qaeda-linked forces on Dec. 8, the army said.

T-4 is Syria’s largest airbase and has been linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Tadmur base is located in the Palmyra military airport.

Also on Tuesday morning, Israeli forces came under attack while on patrol in Syria's Daraa Governorate, according to the IDF. The troops returned fire, and called in strikes on the source of the attack. Local media reported several fatalities.

Tensions remain high along Israel’s northern front, with continued confrontations involving Israeli forces and Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah operating in Lebanon and Syria.

In light of the security situation, Israel’s Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fox said on Wednesday that the Israeli army would maintain a permanent security presence in Gaza, Southern Lebanon and Syria.

“Unequivocally, the security zones in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria are permanent zones,” Fox said in an interview with Galei Israel radio.

Two years after its launch, Israel’s stuttering judicial reform has made little progress: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing partners are again facing waves of street protests by the left over a plan to fire civil servants and diversify the judiciary.

Previous waves, as well as the outbreak of war on Oct. 7, 2023, have blocked significant progress on the reform, which would limit the power of Israel’s muscular judiciary and unelected bureaucracy.

But the reform’s promoters now have a potential asset that they didn’t have two years ago: U.S. President Donald Trump. Some pro-reform individuals are eying a breakthrough, to be achieved by leveraging Trump’s anti-deep state agenda and deploying it locally to ram the reform through despite the Israeli left’s opposition.

The current round of the reform battle concerns Gali Baharv-Miara and Ronen Bar, the attorney general and the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), respectively.

The cabinet unanimously voted for their dismissal in two separate discussions this month, spurring mass protests and legal challenges that will more than likely lead to Supreme Court reviews—and possibly interventions. Bar was fired but remains in his post due to a Supreme Court injunction pending a judicial review next month.

On Thursday, the Knesset passed an amendment that, if it survives a review by Israel's interventionist Supreme Court, will give elected politicians a greater say in the judicial selection process. Overall, however, the opposition has effectively blocked the reform from advancing.

A wave of mass protests last March reversed the dismissal of then defense minister Yoav Gallant, a moderate from Netanyahu’s Likud Party who had issues with the reform. Gallant was eventually fired in November amid fresh protests, but the affair underlined Netanyahu’s limited mandate even over who serves in his own cabinet.

On the legal front, the Supreme Court has eliminated one of the reform’s main legislative achievements: A law that would have taken away from judges the ability to cite “reasonableness” as grounds for their rulings. Critics of Israel’s judiciary say this power is itself not reasonable as it introduces a nakedly subjective judicial criterion.

To preserve unity amid a multi-front war with Hamas and other Iranian proxies, Israel’s right wing has on numerous junctions averted an internal showdown that could’ve jeopardized the war effort, paralyzed the economy and forced the executive branch to defy the judiciary or vice versa.

But to some prominent intellectuals on the Israeli right, the Trump administration represents a unique tiebreaker that has the potential to offset or mitigate those risks. They hope it could break the impasse that has prevented the government from delivering the reform, a major campaign promise.

Relying on the Trump administration to achieve this, however, is unpalatable to many Israeli right-wingers. They have traditionally opposed foreign intervention in Israel’s internal affairs and resent their left-wing rivals’ penchant for using like-minded U.S. administrations to impose policies from abroad.

Netanyahu, who is defending himself in court against corruption charges in a trial he says is an attempt by the judiciary and others to oust him from power, has tied the judicial reform and the fight against it to the Trump administration’s own issues with unelected bureaucracy.

"In America and Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people's will. They won't win in either place,” Netanyahu tweeted last week in a post shared by Elon Musk, Trump’s government efficiency czar.

Moshe Cohen-Eliya, a professor of comparative law and a prominent prime-time panelist on Israel’s Channel 14, last week launched the debate about using the Trump administration against what he called the "deep state" in Israel.

“Revoking their U.S. visas, closing their U.S. bank accounts would give them the ultimate reality check, it’d be the end of the world to them,” Cohen-Eliya wrote in a viral post on Friday. He was referring to people he described as “the juristorcats and their cronies in the Israeli deep state.” He called out Bar and Barhav-Miara by name.

Cohen-Eliya also noted in the post that Israeli groups on the left have been using these tactics for decades against Israelis on the right, especially those living in Judea and Samaria.

A massive leak of U.S. State Department documents from 2010 showed that Peace Now was in regular contact with American diplomats, sharing information about Israeli activity in Judea and Samaria with the Obama administration to ensure U.S. pressure.

Breaking the Silence, another Israeli far left group that’s working to inform international players about perceived human rights violations by Israeli troops, last year publicly celebrated the imposition of sanctions on some Israelis in Judea and Samaria by the Biden administration as a “victory.”

To Eliya-Cohen, this is why the right should now adopt similar tactics against Bar and Baharav-Miara, who he says have hamstrung Netanyahu's right-wing government on numerous fronts.

“In the rough neighborhood where I grew up near the Talpiot market in Haifa, I learned that for every punch thrown your way, you throw two back,” Eliya-Cohen wrote in his post.

However, his proposal that the Trump administration be asked to punish the leaders of the fight against the judicial reform has met vocal opposition from some on the ideological right.

David Peter, a prominent Israeli lawyer, rejected the plan outright at a debate that the two men had on Tuesday in Jerusalem.

“These are illusions, which, if they materialized, would have destructive consequences,” Peter, a researcher for the Kohelet legal forum, said at the event, organized by the Meshilut Movement for Governance and Democracy. Cohen-Eliya accused Peter of "virtue signaling" as the left used extra-democratic means to subvert the mandate of the elected government.

Yehuda Yifrach, a constitutional jurist and the head legal commentator of the Makor Rishon newspaper, also rejected Cohen-Eliya’s blueprint. “This idea of using the U.S. against the protest would become a moral stain if implemented,” Yifrach told JNS. “But it’s also unnecessary: The judicial reform is on track. There are delays and issues, but there’s also progress. We don’t need to debase ourselves and stoop to snitching on other Israelis. It’s gratuitous. We can achieve the goal while remaining on the high road.”

To Yifrach, Jewish history is a warning against inviting a foreign power to intervene in an internal conflict between Jews. “We don’t burn barns, even if the other side does,” he said.

It was a reference to the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans, in which warring Jewish militias burned each other’s food silos while fighting the Romans in the first century C.E. Two Jewish factions had invited the Romans to invade to prevent the other from ruling. The revolt ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple, mass displacement and the end to Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel until 1948.

Others, however, see the reluctance to appeal for U.S. sanctions against the leaders of the fight against the judicial reform as symptomatic of the mainstream right’s failures.

“Why do you think the left wing is winning? Not because it’s good at the game but because you don’t even show up,” Ayelet Mitch, a writer for the conservative website Mida and a former editor for Ha’aretz, wrote on Facebook to David Peter. “You’ve got to start speaking leftwingese or this never stops.”

Cohen-Eliya, meanwhile, is writing to the Trump administration publicly—and in English—to call for intervention.

 “As Elon Musk recently warned, the fight against the unelected bureaucratic class—what many now call the deep state—is a global struggle,” Cohen-Eliya wrote in an op-ed he published Wednesday in Tablet Magazine. “What is needed now is not only internal reform, but international solidarity among nations—and citizens—who value representative government over rule by unaccountable institutions.”

Israel's anti-government protest movement has adopted a new cause: saving the job of Ronen Bar, head of the Israeli Security Agency (aka Shabak or Shin Bet), who was fired by the Israeli government in a unanimous vote on March 20.

On March 22, an estimated 100,000 people demonstrated in various cities against his firing. “Ronen Bar, we’re with you and we’ll defend you,” read one banner, which included a picture of Bar with two heart images.

The puzzling choice of Bar, given his share of the responsibility for the failure of Israel’s intelligence services on Oct. 7, 2023, can only be understood as an attempt to keep a figure whom the protest movement deems sympathetic to its cause in charge of Israel’s secret service, observers tell JNS.

Likud Knesset Member Amit Halevi told JNS that with talk of a looming constitutional crisis, (the government may ignore a High Court ruling against Bar’s firing), anti-government forces would like a part of the security establishment in their camp, especially as they feel they’ve lost the army and the police.

Mordechai Kedar, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, agreed with Halevi, noting that the Israeli left lost the legislature years ago as the majority of Israelis shifted to the political right. 

However, he said, the left held on to major institutions, including the court, the army, the media, academia and the arts.

The left recently lost the army with the appointment of Brig. Gen. Eyal Zamir as chief of staff, and the Defense Ministry is in the hands of Israel Katz of the Likud Party. 

Now the left sees its grip on the Shin Bet and the Attorney General’s Office at risk, he said. 

According to Halevi, it’s “ridiculous” that the government’s opponents see state institutions as belonging to their side. It’s bad when one side views a ministry or branch as its political fiefdom, he said, but “particularly dangerous” when the institution in question is Israel's equivalent to America's FBI. 

Bar sent a letter to the Cabinet when it met over his dismissal (he refused to attend the meeting) arguing that the discussion “does not comply with the legal provisions and rules concerning the termination of any employee’s tenure, let alone a senior official, and especially the director of the Shin Bet.”

It wasn’t clear what rules he was referring to as the government has the right, according to the law, to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet, Halevi told JNS.

The protesters cloak their real aims in high-minded rhetoric, such as “saving democracy,” but the way they define democracy is “15 members of the Supreme Court decide,” added Halevi.

Bar’s political views are not well known—“Shin Bet directors don’t typically give interviews,” noted Halevi—but his actions indicate he shares similar attitudes to the government’s opponents.

First, there is Bar’s behavior the night before the Oct. 7 massacre. When Bar understood something serious was afoot, he rushed to Shin Bet headquarters, where he stayed until the attack broke out. But he didn’t call the prime minister’s office. The prime minister was only informed at 6:29 a.m., when the attack had already begun. 

“It’s not like the prime minister was too busy,” said Halevi. “It shows Bar doesn’t take into consideration the public’s representatives. We now see this attitude big time in his reaction to his dismissal.”

Yoni Ben-Menachem, Middle East intelligence analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), said a key reason for the support Bar has seen in recent days is that the left sees him as a major witness against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when an investigative committee is established to investigate the events surrounding the Oct. 7 massacre. 

“This is why they're protecting him. Also, as long as he's in office he can leak sensitive information to them,” he told JNS. 

The previous Shin Bet head, Nadav Argaman, to whom Bar served as deputy, told Israel's Channel 12 News on March 13 that he could release compromising information if Netanyahu breaks the law, i.e. ignores a High Court ruling.

Despite the recent surge in protests, Kedar insisted they are losing support. He expects that they will be much reduced as a result of a bill moving through the legislature that would impose an 80% tax on donations from foreign entities to Israeli nonprofits.

Beyond that, the Israeli public is no longer with the demonstrators, he said. “They are losing their base as well.”

After a 17-hour filibuster, Israel's Knesset on Thursday voted 67 to1 to change the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee, the body that appoints the country's judges. Opposition members left the hall during the vote.

The law changes the committee’s composition, replacing two spots held by representatives of the Israel Bar Association with two attorneys appointed by Knesset members.

One of the attorneys is to be chosen by the ruling coalition and one by the opposition. A majority of at least five will be required for a selection, so long as one is a coalition member and one from the opposition.

In the old framework, the Judicial Selection Committee comprised three Supreme Court judges, two government ministers, two Knesset members, and two lawyers from the IBA.

Given that the IBA representatives typically voted with the judges, who vote as a bloc, the justices effectively had veto power over the nomination process, according to critics of the previous system.

Supporters of judicial reform have argued that the judges’ de facto majority led to ideological homogeneity on the bench.

Its opponents argue that the new law gives the political echelon too much influence over the judicial branch.

Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara criticized the new law, saying it "casts a heavy political shadow over the judicial system and harms its professionalism, independence and ability to criticize the government."

Opposition leaders on Thursday vowed to repeal the new law in the next government.

Senior Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanou was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza overnight Wednesday, according to the terrorist organization.

Several other people were reportedly wounded in the strike, according to Arab media reports.

The Israel Defense Forces has not issued an official statement confirming the strike.

Al-Qanou was regarded as one of Hamas's key public figures, alongside Abu Obaida, spokesman for the terrorist group's military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, and spokesman Hazem Qassem. He was believed to have had close ties with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces on Oct. 16, 2024.

After maintaining a low profile during the early stages of the conflict, al-Qanou resumed media appearances during the ceasefire, continuing to act as a spokesperson in Arabic-language outlets.

In a recent interview with Al-Araby TV, he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of intentionally delaying ceasefire negotiations for political purposes, while claiming Hamas had submitted “reasonable” proposals.

Israel's Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fox said on Wednesday that the Israeli army would maintain a permanent security presence in Gaza, Southern Lebanon and Syria.

"Unequivocally, the security zones in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria are permanent zones," Fox said in an interview with Galey Israel radio.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has repeatedly threatened to reduce Gaza's territory due to the Hamas terrorist organization's refusal to release the hostages, including on Wednesday, when he warned that "more and more territory will be integrated into Israel’s defense formation."

These plans are "already prepared and approved," said Katz in a message to Gaza's residents, adding, "Hamas is putting your lives at risk, causing you to lose your homes."

He called on them to "demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages," adding that "this is the only way to stop the war."

Earlier this month, Katz announced that the Israel Defense Forces will remain at five outposts in Southern Lebanon "indefinitely," despite the launch of talks with Beirut over the disputed international border.

"This is intended to protect the residents of the north, regardless of any future negotiations over disputed border points," Katz's office stated.

Days earlier, the defense minister reiterated his commitment to the IDF staying in Syrian territory "indefinitely" to protect the northern border.

"Every morning when [Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa] opens his eyes in the presidential palace in Damascus, he will see the IDF watching him from the heights of the Hermon and will remember that we are here, in all security areas in southern Syria," said Katz on March 11.

"We are here to protect the residents of the Golan and the Galilee from any threat posed by him and his jihadi associates," added the minister.

Israeli officials have repeatedly vowed to prevent another attack similar to the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre from the Gaza Strip, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 captive.

On Wednesday night, the IDF announced that a two-division exercise was underway on the northern border with Lebanon, in cooperation with the Israeli Air Force, Navy, Israel Police, Israel Fire and Rescue Services, Magen David Adom and civilian security defense teams.

The drill "simulates complex scenarios of various types in defense and offense," the IDF stated, adding: "It also highlights the strengthening of defense in communities near the border and a very wide range of integrated scenarios with all security bodies operating in the area."

The Zionist story has many details, but the basic outlines are the amazing storyline from ancient emancipation to modern rejuvenation. To understand Zionism, one needs to be familiar with its history, leaders and philosophy. To understand the State of Israel, its history, leaders and policies need to be studied.

However, to understand Zionism and the State of Israel, one must also understand the Palestinian people.

The foundation of all Zionist thought is that the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, and they alone have the right to govern it. Yet, a student of Zionism should ask, “How did Zionist leaders relate to the other people on their land?” “How should Zionists deal with the Palestinians?” and “How will Zionists deal with the Palestinians in the future?” Ignoring these questions leaves a gaping hole in Zionist philosophy.

The United Nations adopted Resolution 3379 in November 1975, which “Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” This resolution effectively made the international community officially denounce Zionism and the values of the State of Israel as racist. This resolution and its accompanying libel of Zionism as a racist ideology lasted for 16 years until the United Nations revoked the resolution in December 1991. The Arab League, led by the Palestinians, was the leading advocate for the Zionism is racism resolution. To fully understand that Zionism isn’t racism, one must understand why Palestinians mistakenly thought Zionism discriminated against them, and why they are wrong.

Early Zionists were willing to share the land of Israel with the Arabs who lived there. Before Israel was established, early Zionist leaders accepted the suggestions of both the British Peel Commission and the United Nations Partition Plan that the Jewish people and the Palestinian people split the land. At Israel’s seminal moments, Israel’s leaders reached out to the Arabs and offered peace.

Only an understanding of Arabs who lived both inside and outside of British Mandatory Palestine’s refusal to talk to the Peel Commission, their rejection of the U.N. Partition Plan and their continued intransigence in the face of numerous Israeli peace proposals can explain why there hasn’t been a Palestinian state.

It is only by researching and understanding the Palestinians, their demands and their culture of violence that one can explain that it isn’t the responsibility of Zionists to satisfy Palestinian demands. Palestinian demonization of Israel instead of Palestinian progress is the cause of their unhappiness. Misunderstanding Zionism by conflating it with Palestinian destiny and desires can only happen when the student misunderstands the Palestinians.

Palestinians accuse Israel of stealing land from the native Palestinians. If educators don’t teach that Palestinians aren’t indigenous to the land of Israel, that the Palestinians weren’t colonized and that Zionism isn’t immoral for returning the Jewish people to live in their historic homeland, then they aren’t fully explaining Zionism.

Although the study of Zionism is a study of objective facts, history and philosophy, it also contains a narrative. Every people has a story and every nation has its legends. In any good story, there is a “good guy” and a “bad guy.” For over a century, the Palestinians have tried to portray the Zionists as the bad guy. To teach the Zionist narrative properly, people must clearly explain why Zionists aren’t the “bad guys” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is only by familiarizing oneself with the Palestinian admiration of violence and terrorism in response to Zionist offers of peace that Zionists can understand their narrative.

It isn’t enough for Zionist leaders, educators, advocates and influencers to talk about the virtues of Zionism. To fully explain Zionism, the views of the other side, the anti-Zionists, must be explained as well.

Between 20% and 30% of adults no longer affiliate with the religion which they grew up in many Western countries, including 28% of Americans. But fewer than 1% of adults who were raised as Israeli Jews no longer identify as such, per a new Pew Research Center report on "religious switching."

Pew drew on data from 36 countries, including 36,908 American adults from a study conducted between July 2023 and March 2024, and surveys of 41,503 adults outside of the United States conducted between January and May 2024.

"Christianity and Buddhism have experienced especially large losses from this 'religious switching,' while rising numbers of adults have no religious affiliation," per the Pew study.

In South Korea, 50% of adults surveyed said that they had switched from their birth religion, per the Pew study, followed by Spain (40%), Canada (38%), Sweden (37%), the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (36% each) and Australia, France, Germany and Japan (34% each).

Pew found that religious switching was also rare—lower than 5%—in India, Nigeria and Thailand, in addition to Israel.

"Most of the movement has been into the category we call religiously unaffiliated, which consists of people who answer a question about their religion by saying they are atheists, agnostics or 'nothing in particular,'" Pew found. "Most of the switching is disaffiliation—people leaving the religion of their childhood and no longer identifying with any religion."

Per Pew, 80% of Jews worldwide live in the United States and Israel.

"Viewed as a percentage of all U.S. adults, few people have left or joined Judaism. But Jewish adults make up only a small fraction of the U.S. population to begin with, about 2%," according to the study. "Most people who were raised Jewish in Israel and the United States still identify this way today, resulting in high Jewish retention rates in both countries—though it’s higher in Israel than in the United States."

About a quarter (24%) of U.S. adults raised Jewish no longer identify as such, some 24 times the corresponding number of Israeli adults, with most now identifying as atheist, agnostic or no faith, according to the study.

Among U.S. adults raised Jewish, 17% are now unaffiliated, 2% identify as Christian and 1% as Muslim, the study found.

In Israel, Pew found that Jews often switch religious denominations, which the research body defines as "religious" (Dati), "ultra-Orthodox" (Haredi), "traditional" (Masorti) and "secular" (Hiloni).

Of the 22% of Israeli Jews who switched denominations from the one in which they were raised, 10% were raised traditional and 9% religious, and 9% of Israeli adults who weren't raised secular now identify as such, according to Pew. Fewer than 1% of those raised Haredi have switched, and about the same number have become Haredi, the study found.

Overall, per the Pew data, shifts in denominations in Israel have seen 15% become less religiously observant and 6% become more observant.