Secular Israel
Who Israel's secular Jews (hilonim) are, where they live, how their towns have voted since 2019, and where they stand on the issues of the 2026 election.
Share of valid votes cast in each locality, computed from the Central Elections Committee's per-locality result files for the 21st–25th Knessets.
- Tel Aviv-Yafo
- Givatayim
- Ramat HaSharon
- Herzliya
- Hod HaSharon
- Kibbutz Movement kibbutzim
- Whole country
The numbers: Largest list, 2019–2022: how these towns voted
| Place | Apr 2019 | Sep 2019 | Mar 2020 | Mar 2021 | Nov 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tel Aviv-Yafo | Blue and White 45.7% | Blue and White 42.7% | Blue and White 48.2% | Yesh Atid 22.1% | Yesh Atid 32.8% |
| Givatayim | Blue and White 50.6% | Blue and White 50.3% | Blue and White 55.5% | Yesh Atid 26.7% | Yesh Atid 37.6% |
| Ramat HaSharon | Blue and White 55.6% | Blue and White 53.0% | Blue and White 59.6% | Yesh Atid 29.2% | Yesh Atid 42.2% |
| Herzliya | Blue and White 47.8% | Blue and White 47.7% | Blue and White 51.4% | Yesh Atid 26.7% | Yesh Atid 37.2% |
| Hod HaSharon | Blue and White 53.6% | Blue and White 53.0% | Blue and White 57.4% | Yesh Atid 30.4% | Yesh Atid 40.5% |
| Kibbutz Movement kibbutzim | Blue and White 50.2% | Blue and White 50.1% | Blue and White 57.6% | Labor 25.3% | Yesh Atid 36.8% |
| Whole country | Likud 26.5% | Blue and White 25.9% | Likud 29.5% | Likud 24.2% | Likud 23.4% |
Source: Central Elections Committee, locality results (computed), April 2019 – November 2022. Files for each election at media21–media25.bechirot.gov.il/files/expc.csv. Lists are named as they ran that year: Blue and White (Gantz–Lapid) ran jointly in 2019–20; in 2021 Yesh Atid and Blue and White ran separately. Kibbutz Movement kibbutzim are those the CBS 2022 localities file assigns to the Kibbutz Movement (237–238 matched in each election file). Soldiers' and other double-envelope votes are not assigned to any locality. Places, not people: every city includes traditional, religious and Arab voters
See Tel Aviv-Yafo on the vote map: Yesh Atid (32.8%), Nov 2022
Facts checked October 5, 2026. Every number shows its source and date.
Size, growth and geography
Secular Jews, hilonim in Hebrew, are often called "Ashkenazi" or "Tel Aviv" Israel. Both words are shorthand, not a description. The first comes from the overlap with Jews of European origin: Pew found that "fully two-thirds of Ashkenazim identify as secular (Hiloni) Jews, compared with about three-in-ten of Sephardim/Mizrahim" (Pew, fieldwork 2014–15, published 2016). But the overlap is partial, and origin itself is blurring: in 2025, 15.3% of Jewish adults described their origin as mixed (IDI, Democracy Index 2025). "Tel Aviv" names the group's best-known city, which is not all of it: the secular also live in the Sharon suburbs, Haifa and the kibbutzim, and Tel Aviv-Yafo itself includes Jaffa and many traditional and religious voters.
By the Central Bureau of Statistics' count, 39.6% of Jews aged 20 and over call themselves secular, the largest single group but not a majority (CBS via Ynet, September 2026; age range per VIN News). The rest: 21.8% traditional, not so religious; 14.0% traditional-religious; 12.4% religious; 11.5% Haredi (ultra-Orthodox).
Growth is slow. In 2022 secular women had about two children each, against about six and a half for Haredi women; these figures are read from a Taub Center chart of CBS-based estimates. Taub projects that secular women reaching their early forties in the mid- to late 2030s will have had "around 1.6 children" (Taub Center, December 2025). Emigration (see below) is the other half of the story.
No CBS table of religiosity by city could be obtained, so the geography rests on where the secular vote shows up: Tel Aviv-Yafo, Givatayim, Ramat HaSharon, Herzliya, Hod HaSharon and the kibbutzim. The 241 kibbutzim of the Kibbutz Movement had 173,911 residents in 2022, under 2% of the population (CBS localities file, 2022). The secular are the most educated Jewish group in the newest comparison available, which is more than ten years old: 45% of Hiloni adults held a college degree, against 23% of Masortim and 13% of Haredim (Pew, fieldwork 2014–15).
How their towns have voted, 2019–2022
The tables below show places, not people. They are computed from the Central Elections Committee's locality result files (CEC), and each list appears under the name it ran under that year.
The pattern across five elections has three phases. In 2019–20 these places gave Blue and White, the joint list of Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, between 43% and 60% of their vote. By March 2021 that list had split, and the vote scattered across Yesh Atid, Labor, Meretz, Blue and White and New Hope; Labor led in the kibbutzim. In 2022 it re-formed behind Yesh Atid, which took 33–42% in the five cities.
Share of valid votes cast in each locality, 25th Knesset election, computed from the Central Elections Committee's per-locality result file.
| Place | Yesh Atid | Likud | National Unity | Labor | Meretz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tel Aviv-Yafo | 32.8% | 17.0% | 11.0% | 9.3% | 10.9% |
| Givatayim | 37.6% | 15.8% | 14.9% | 10.5% | 8.6% |
| Ramat HaSharon | 42.2% | 15.7% | 13.3% | 7.2% | 8.5% |
| Herzliya | 37.2% | 21.3% | 14.1% | 5.8% | 5.7% |
| Kibbutz Movement kibbutzim | 36.8% | 7.3% | 15.4% | 17.7% | 13.9% |
| Whole country | 17.8% | 23.4% | 9.1% | 3.7% | 3.2% |
Strongest shade: 50%. Source: Central Elections Committee, locality results (computed), November 2022. National Unity was the 2022 joint list of Blue and White and New Hope. Meretz fell below the electoral threshold nationally
The secular right is real but small in these places. Likud took 15–22% in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Givatayim and Ramat HaSharon in every one of the five elections, 21–27% in Herzliya, and under 9% on the kibbutzim. In 2022 the four lists that went on to form the government (Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and the Religious Zionism joint list) took 26.7% in Tel Aviv-Yafo, 21.7% in Givatayim and 11.0% on the kibbutzim, against 48.4% nationally (CEC, computed). Meretz fell below the threshold nationally in 2022 while taking 10.9% in Tel Aviv-Yafo and 13.9% on the kibbutzim.
Surveys of people, not places, tell the same story. Pooled IDI surveys from November 2022 to October 2023 found that secular voters chose Yesh Atid 39%, Likud 20%, Labor and Meretz 16% and National Unity 13%, and that 74% voted for opposition parties (IDI, Finkelstein, June 2026). 78.5% of Yesh Atid's Jewish voters were secular, and so were 32% of Likud's.
No published 2026 poll breaking vote intention down by religiosity was found. The parties competing for these voters in 2026 are on the party pages.
What they think on the issues
Politically the secular are not one camp: 23.8% place themselves on the left, 37.7% in the center and 37.2% on the right (IDI, May 2025). On some issues they are close to united anyway.
The Haredi draft. This is the nearest thing to consensus. 71% chose drafting all young Haredi men except a small number of outstanding yeshiva students; 4% wanted to leave things as they are (IDI, September 2025). See the Haredi draft.
Share choosing "Draft all young Haredi men, with the exception of a small number of outstanding yeshiva students" as the correct solution to the conscription question (other options: draft only those enrolled at "dropout yeshivot"; leave things as they are).
Source: Israel Democracy Institute, Israeli Voice Index, September 14–18, 2025, n = 1,000 (800 Hebrew-language interviews). Values read from the chart labels in IDI's Graph 13. Jewish respondents by self-defined religiosity
Courts. One of the widest gaps between groups is over the Supreme Court: 66% of secular Jews trust it, against 3% of Haredim (IDI, May 2025). 72.5% of secular Jews say decisions opposed to basic democratic values are not democratic even if a Knesset majority passes them. Their trust in the government is 9% and in the Knesset 8%. See courts and the judicial overhaul.
Share of Jewish respondents expressing trust in the Supreme Court.
Source: Israel Democracy Institute, Israeli Democracy Index 2025 (Table 2.6), May 4–28, 2025, 1,205 respondents in the Jewish sample (Jews and others)
War and hostages. IDI reports these questions by political camp, not religiosity. In September 2025, 94% on the left, 80% in the center and 48% on the right said the hostages should be the main goal of the war (IDI, September 2025). No survey giving the secular figure itself was found. See the war and the hostages.
West Bank. 66.5% of secular Jews said security forces treat violent settlers "too leniently," against 20.5% of national-religious Jews (IDI, December 2025). 21% supported Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip in both November 2024 and August 2025 (IDI). See the West Bank.
Religion and state. Secular is not the same as non-observant: 47% of secular Jews fast on Yom Kippur, fully or partly, and 20% attend a service (IDI, July–August 2026). 23% name religious–secular as the sharpest tension in Israeli society (IDI, 2025). See religion and state.
Economy. No survey of secular economic attitudes was found. The mood is the darkest of any group: 9% call Israel's overall situation good, against 42% of Haredim, and 38.5% are optimistic about the country's future (IDI, 2025). See the economy.
Who they are
The protest movement. The 2023 protest movement against the judicial overhaul, whose weekly Saturday-night rallies on Tel Aviv's Kaplan Street gave it its common name, is the group's recent public face. By 2026 the rallies were small: about 300 people gathered at Habima Square on August 1 (Times of Israel, August 2026). The name became a political label. In September 2026 the heritage minister said:
I don't want to draft someone from Kaplan to enlist in combat [duty], and in the end they won't storm into battle.
A bereaved father answered him, as quoted in the same report:
My son, hero of Israel, protested at Kaplan for a better country, and charged with his tank into the hellscape and fell in battle.
Reserve duty. The common claim that secular Israelis carry the reserve burden holds for numbers, not rates. In the last quarter of 2023, 11.2% of secular men aged 21–44 served reserve duty in an average month; in 2025 the rate was 1.7%, against 4.3% for religious men and 2.6% for traditional men, though "secular men were still the largest group of male reservists" (IDI, August 2026, from CBS Labor Force Survey data).
Leaving Israel. Secular Jews are the group most likely to consider leaving: 39%, against 3% of Haredim (IDI, April 2025). Among younger secular Jews the figure was 60% (Times of Israel on the same survey, November 2025). The dominant reasons IDI found were the cost of living and "the lack of a good future for their children." Emigrants' average income rose from about NIS 125,000 in 2015–19 to about NIS 200,000 in 2024, roughly 50% above the national average (Israel Tax Authority via Times of Israel, August 2026). Some describe leaving as protest. Hagai Agmon-Snir, a neuroscientist who moved from Mevaseret Zion to Italy, said, as quoted by the Times of Israel:
Leaving is our way of expressing our opposition.
Share of Jewish respondents who say they are considering leaving Israel.
Source: Israel Democracy Institute, "Stay or Go" survey, April 6–17, 2025, 720 Jewish respondents. Published December 2025