Posted on 10/10/2025 1:30:06 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
While I have, that knowledge predates me and VDH.
I read the whole article you posted carefully, but I didn't see that surprising statistic in it. Do you have a reference for that? That would be remarkable if true.
Religious = ‘dati’
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-821800
...Among the respondents, secular individuals make up the largest portion of the population (43.5%). They are followed by non-religious traditionalists (18.9%), religious traditionalists (13%), religious (12.5%), and lastly, ultra-Orthodox (11.3%)...
About 15% of Israelis identify themselves as religious Zionist
Here is a correction from a different article from the same newspaper source you referenced:
The Jerusalem Post: 90% of Israeli Jews call themselves Zionists
Whomever qualifies or doesn't qualify as "religious" in Israel is just semantics.
Dati Leumi ‘religious nationalist’ - has a specific meaning in Israel.
So nearly 100% of religious Israeli’s are Zionists, but only about 15% of Israelis are religious. If the Zionist claim on the land is merely racial and not religious, then it is difficult to see any reason why Abraham’s son Isaac’s Jewish descendants have any more claim on the land than Abraham’s son Ishmael’s Muslim descendants.
The numbers and the terms are tricky. “Religious Zionist” is a particular category.
Wikipedia says, “Religious Zionism (Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת דָּתִית, romanized: Tziyonut Datit) is a religious denomination that views Zionism as a fundamental component of Orthodox Judaism.”
So you can be religious and a Zionist without being a “religious Zionist” if you aren’t Orthodox or don’t think of Zionism as a fundamental part of your religion.
Thank you, that (sort of) helps! The political motivations and the religious identities in Israel seem to be intermingled in a unique way.
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