{"id":622338,"date":"2026-09-20T23:54:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T23:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622338\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T23:54:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T23:54:25","slug":"how-many-israeli-jews-fast-participate-in-prayers-on-yom-kippur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622338\/","title":{"rendered":"How many Israeli Jews fast, participate in prayers on Yom Kippur?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-quarters (74%) of all Israeli Jews fast on Yom Kippur<\/a> while over half (57%) participate in the day\u2019s prayers, a new survey from the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) found.<\/p>\n

About 63% of Israeli Jews fast fully and 11% fast partially (part of the day or in some years), but the figure varies across secular, religious, and non-religious traditional Jews.<\/p>\n

Among secular Jews, less than half (47%) fast on Yom Kippur, with 28% fasting fully and 19% partially, while the number among non-religious traditional Jews and religous Jews is significantly higher.<\/p>\n

Some 90% non-religious traditional Jews fast on Yom Kippur (77% fully and 13% partially), and 97%\u201398% of Haredi<\/a> (ultra-Orthodox), religious, and religious-traditional Jews fast fully.<\/p>\n

According to the survey, more Mizrahi Jews fast on Yom Kippur than Ashkenazi Jews and those of mixed background, with 81% Mizrahi Jews fasting fully and just about half (50.5%) of Ashkenazi Jews doing the same.<\/p>\n

\"ThousandsThousands of Jews gather for selichot prayer services at the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, ahead of Yom Kippur, September 15, 2026 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM\/THE JERUSALEM POST)<\/p>\n

Only a small number of those who reported fasting partially or not at all are older, according to the survey data, suggesting the reasons are more linked to health or principle.<\/p>\n

There is little variance between the genders of those who fast, the survey found, as 65% of men fast fully, compared to 61% of women. By contrast, 13% of women fast partially, compared with 10% of men.<\/p>\n

A breakdown by age shows that the gender difference exists only among the aged 18\u201344; among those over 44, the proportion who fast fully is the same for men and women.<\/p>\n

How many Israeli Jews participate in Yom Kippur prayers?<\/p>\n

Of those who participate in Yom Kippur prayer services, 51% attend Orthodox services while a minority (6%) attend Reform or Conservative services.<\/p>\n

Most religious-traditional Jews (90%) participate in Yom Kippur prayers.<\/p>\n

Among non-religious traditional Jews, 67% participate (9% in non-Orthodox services), and among secular Jews, the number drops further, with only 20% participating (7% in non-Orthodox services).<\/p>\n

In total, between a fifth and a quarter of Haredi, religious, religious-traditional, and non-religious traditional Jews participate in Yom Kippur prayer services, alongside 11% of secular Jews.<\/p>\n

Of those who participate in Reform<\/a> or Conservative services, half are secular and 48% are traditional.<\/p>\n

Men participate in Yom Kippur prayers at a slightly higher rate than women, with the difference reflected clearly in Orthodox prayer services, where 54% of men participate in Orthodox prayer on Yom Kippur, compared with 48% of women.<\/p>\n

Another 6% of both men and women participate in Reform or Conservative prayer services.<\/p>\n

Differences across gender<\/p>\n

Differences between participants genders are also pronounced among traditional groups, with 76% of men and 56% of women participating.<\/p>\n

Mizrahi Jews also participate in Yom Kippur prayers at a higher rate (68%) than Ashkenazi Jews and those of mixed background, with the numbers at about half (50% and 51%, respectively).<\/p>\n

However, non-religious traditional Mizrahi Jews have a lower rate of prayer participation which sits at 63% while that Ashkenazi Jews (74%) and people of mixed background (76%) is slightly higher.<\/p>\n

Among secular Jews, the rate of Yom Kippur prayer participation among Mizrahi (22%), mixed (22%), and Ashkenazi Jews (18%) is similar.<\/p>\n

For 18% of Israeli Jews, attending synagogue on Yom Kippur is their only synagogue visit of the entire year, including 37% of non-religious traditional Jews, 21% of religious-traditional Jews, and 16% of secular Jews.<\/p>\n

Among those who attend synagogue services on Yom Kippur, 32% say it is their only synagogue<\/a> visit during the year.<\/p>\n

The survey was conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in July\u2013August 2026 for the “Religion and State in Israel Biannual,\u201d with a sample of 1,002 Jewish respondents aged 18 and over, and was representative of Israel’s Jewish population. The fieldwork was conducted by IPanel. The maximum sampling error is 3.1%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-quarters (74%) of all Israeli Jews fast on Yom Kippur while over half (57%) participate in the day\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[134260,5202,12184,85,46,1899,75909,43,80615,28975,43945,82925,41717],"class_list":["post-622338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-ashkenazi","tag-fasting","tag-haredi","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-judaism","tag-mizrahi","tag-news","tag-orthodox-jews","tag-reform","tag-secular","tag-synagogue","tag-yom-kippur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}