Some issues complicate the narrative of wide Israel-Diaspora gaps

A few days ago, Gallup published an analysis on the views of religious groups in America on 5 “key issues” – abortion, doctor-assisted suicide, the cloning of animals, gay-lesbian relations, and having a baby outside marriage.

If you are not totally ignorant of American Jewish social trends you will not be surprised to learn that the Jews have the most liberal views of all religious groups on all of these issues, and that they have views quite similar to the most liberal Americans – those with “no religion”.

As Gallup puts it: “Jews and those with no religious preferences have virtually identical views on the morality of abortion, doctor-assisted suicide, gay-lesbian relations and cloning animals. Jews are somewhat less likely than nonreligious Americans to believe having a baby outside of marriage is moral, 68% to 80%.” Take a look:

This is an opportunity to point out something that is often ignored in the never-ending talk about Israel-Diaspora relations – and about the contradicting trends among US Jews and Israeli Jews. Supposedly, as Jews in America become more liberal, the Jews of Israel are becoming more conservative. And indeed, by some measures that is the case: Jews in Israel tend to be more tribal, while American Jews are becoming more “universalist” in their outlook. The recent report by the Pew Research Center highlighted the gaps between the two largest Jewish communities: “Most Israeli Jews describe their ideology as in the center (55%) or on the right (37%) within the Israeli political spectrum. Just 8% of Israeli Jews say they lean left. American Jews, meanwhile, generally describe their ideology as liberal (49%) or moderate (29%) on the American political spectrum, while about one-in-five (19%) say they are politically conservative.”

Yet this narrative of wide gaps is disrupted when one considers the views of Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis on social issues such as the ones included in the Gallup analysis.

Take, for example, gay marriage. Are Israelis more conservative on this issue than Jewish Americans? They probably are. But taking all things into account – their circumstances and the region they live in, the fact that Israel has a relatively traditional society, that Israel includes a larger segment of Orthodox Jews – the differences are as hardly as wide as you might suspect. Equality for gays and lesbians, including the ability to wed, is supported by a majority of Jews in Israel. A survey in 2013 found that “89 percent of secular people say they are in favor of full equality, as did 72 percent of traditional respondents and 46 percent of those who defined themselves as religious and Arabs.”

Support of equality for gays is consistent among Israeli Jews, and toleration of discrimination or bigotry against the gay community is low. In a recent JPPI survey we asked Jewish Israelis to say if they agree that “homosexuals should not be Members of Knesset,” and eighty percent of them disagreed. The only group that agreed with such a notion was that of ultra-Orthodox Jews (they are about 10% of the Jewish population).

Or take abortion as an example: unlike the case of gay marriage, in which there is a clear gap between public opinion (supportive) and official policies (no gay marriage – although court decisions have made gay couples equal in the material sense), abortion policies in Israel are highly lax. Israelis are not enthusiastic about the idea of abortion, but see it as necessary. They also have a tendency to disapprove of any government policies that could affect what they see as highly personal matters. Considering Israel’s affection – some might say obsession – for children, its non-restrictive policies concerning abortion are even more remarkable.

In 2013, an international Pew survey found that while in America 17% say that abortion is “morally acceptable” (that is Americans, not Jewish Americans), in Israel that number is 25%. In America 29% said that “having Sex between unmarried adults is morally acceptable”. In Israel it was 36%. So Israel is definitely more liberal on these issues than America. It is probably a little less liberal on these issues than Jewish America – but not concerning all issues, and not by as wide a margin as some observers of Israel-Diaspora relations believe.