Poll: 70% of secular Israelis worry about their future under new gov

The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) released a poll on Wednesday showing that 70 percent of secular Jews in Israel are worried about preserving their way of life under Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, deemed the most religious and right-wing in the country's history.

The survey, conducted by the Viterbi Center for the Study of Public Opinion and Politics, also found that about 75 percent of respondents believe that the influence of the ultra-Orthodox community on Israeli politics is very large or quite large compared to their share of the population. On the other hand, 57 percent of respondents said that the influence of women and the LGBTQ+ community on Israeli politics is lower than their representation in the country's population.

Two months after the elections, there was an average 6 percent drop in optimism about the future of Israel's democratic government, from 46 percent in November to 40 percent in December. Among Jews, the optimism rate fell from 48 percent in November to 42 percent in December, while among Arabs it fell from 34 percent in November to 33 percent in December.

Regarding Israel's international status, 85 percent of the left-wing respondents predict a change for the worse against 74 percent of the centrist audience. On the other hand, only 36 percent of right-wing Israelis believe that the country’s position will be undermined by the new government.

Looming cycle

This poll comes on the backs of another study released earlier this week by the IDI which found that Israel's ultra-Orthodox community is the fastest-growing in the Jewish state and will represent 16 percent of the total Israeli population by 2030. 

The ultra-Orthodox community has a very protected, ideological way of life that differs starkly from Israel's secular society. So if the numbers of the second IDI study stand to be correct and there is to be a wave of secular immigration, then it stands to reason that the ultra-Orthodox population will eventually hold a higher percentage of the overall population. 

As such, their way of life - which does not differentiate much between state and religion - could very well see Israel turn into a theocracy. Some of the main differences between the secular and religious populations in Israel revolve around the notion of work. Secular Israelis are mostly highly educated and make up a major part of the country's workforce. Ultra-Orthodox Israelis, however, do not view traditional core subjects like Math and English as necessities and instead prioritize religious study. As such, they are not qualified in many fields and represent a far smaller portion of the workforce. 

Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers within Israel's right-wing government have also pushed toward protecting and safeguarding the community's worldview by proposing a broad range of measures to benefit their population, including increasing stipends for seminary students, which may disincentivize ultra-Orthodox men from entering the workforce - a cycle that is likely to perpetuate itself with a government makeup such as the incumbent coalition.