Shavuot (Feast of Weeks), celebrated seven weeks after Passover, commemorates the pivotal event of Matan Torah – the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. This moment is often regarded as the birth of Jewish peoplehood, marking the transition of the Jewish People from a collection of tribes to a unified nation bound by shared laws, values and narratives.
In contemporary times, this festival invites reflection on how these ancient principles continue to inspire and unite Jewish communities around the world today.
But what does Jewish peoplehood look like today? Recent JPR research offers us some valuable insights.
Two out of three European Jews say ‘feeling part of the Jewish people’ is very important to their Jewish identity
In a recent pan-European survey conducted by JPR for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), we asked Jews across 12 European countries about which aspects of Jewishness were most important to their Jewish identity.
Sixty six percent of the 16,400 Jews who completed the survey said ‘feeling part of the Jewish people’ was ‘very important’ to them – lower than the proportions who highlighted ‘remembering the Holocaust’ (78%) or ‘fighting antisemitism’ (73%), but considerably more than the proportions of Jews who highlighted ‘sharing Jewish festivals with family’ (52%), ‘supporting Israel’ (51%), ‘Jewish culture’ (42%) or ‘believing in God’ (33%).
Jews in Spain appear to value Jewish peoplehood the most
Omri Gal, JPR
While ‘feeling part of the Jewish people’ ranks highly among the dimensions of Jewishness we examined in many European communities, the results vary considerably between countries. Based on our analysis, Jews in Spain appear to value Jewish peoplehood more than anywhere else – only there do we find that it is ranked as the most important aspect of people’s Jewish identity (82%) – higher than ‘combating antisemitism’ or ‘remembering the Holocaust’, which topped the lists in all other countries.
On the other hand, Jewish communities in former communist countries that prize Jewish peoplehood least: in Poland, just 43% say it is very important to them, and in Hungary, just 41% do.
Twice as many Jews in Europe say ‘feeling part of the Jewish people’ is very important to their Jewish identity than say the same about ‘believing in God’.
As a general rule, this notion of Jewish peoplehood tends to be much more important to Jews collectively than God and Torah – the predominant theme of Shavuot. Indeed, most Jews today do not believe in God as described in the Bible or that the Bible itself is the word of God. Across Europe as a whole, only one in three Jews say ‘believing in God’ is very important to their Jewish identity.
In the UK, for example, seven out of ten Jews think that belief in God is not central to being a good Jew, and only a third are ‘believers’. Nevertheless, over half (53%) of British Jewish households belong to a synagogue, and many practice aspects of Jewish religious culture: 71% attend a Passover seder every year, 63% fast on Yom Kippur, and 51% light Shabbat candles every Friday night. It seems that for many Jews today, these overtly religious aspect of Judaism are important to them less because they feel obligated to observe them out of a sense of religious devotion, and more because they help to create of cultural connection with Jews elsewhere, across time and space.
Feelings of attachment to Jewish community have increased since the October 7 attacks in Israel
When we asked JPR Research Panel members how attached they felt to their local Jewish community after the October 7 attacks compared to before them, we saw a significant shift upwards. In the face of increased antisemitism at home, and with high levels of concern for Israel in the minds of many, it seems that many Jews sought out the kind of intra-Jewish solidarity that can be found in Jewish community structures. In brief, they wanted to be together.
In general, Jews tend to be quite close-knit: our most recent data from the UK show 56% report that more than half of their closest friends are Jewish, compared to 31% who say more than half are not. Measured in this way, little appears to have changed since October 7th, 2023. Yet when we asked respondents directly about whether the events of October 7th and the war in Gaza have affected their Jewish or non-Jewish social networks in any way, we found evidence of a distinct shift towards Jewish friends and away from non-Jewish ones. It seems that in these uncertain times, many Jews seem to be prizing Jewish peoplehood even more than usual.
- Omri Gal Kornblum, director of communications, the Institute of Jewish Policy Research
