The Long Brief: Time, Not Theocracy
How Israel uses a Jewish calendar to structure public life without enforcing belief—just as Western democracies quietly do with Christian time.
Shalom, friends.
This is perhaps, on the surface, a little less timely than some of our Long Briefs, but it was inspired by a conversation with a Christian pilgrim at Ben Gurion a few weeks ago. They were relatively opposed to Israel observing Shabbat. More kvetching about it than one would anticipate, but that’s ok. However, it led me to realize just how different people’s perception of the matter could be, so I want to take this opportunity to dive into how Israel deals with “Jewish time.”
I first really noticed how different it was a couple of years ago on my first visit to Israel. Back before Aliyah was even on my radar. It was during a Friday afternoon in Tel Aviv.
The city was loud, impatient, caffeinated. Horns. Deadlines. What else is new? You probably know that familiar Israeli hum that feels just one traffic jam away from combustion. Then, almost without warning, it softened. Shops pulled shutters. Phones went quiet. Someone, passing by, wished us a Shabbat shalom and tried to give us a box with a pair of tea lights. The hands on the clock had turned, and the country turned with it.
No one asked what I believed. Well, almost no one. Some Chabadniks asked if I was Jewish and if I had wrapped tefillin that morning. No one checked where I was going. The overcrowded shuk cleared out. The streets cleared. Families drifted home. Some to synagogue. Some to dinner tables. Some to the beach.
I’ve heard arguments against this slowing down. Many of them in fact. Usually from people who have never step foot in the country. Those whose views of multiculturalism have been made toxic. Those who think that slowing on Saturday is anathema—though who have no trouble with the same thing happening on a Sunday.
That moment—watching a modern, secular society slow itself down on purpose—stuck with me. Not as religion. With coordination. As a nation choosing how it lives in time.
This brief is an attempt to explain that moment properly.
A Jewish calendar, not theocracy
How Israel structures national life around Jewish time without enforcing belief—and why this is normal, democratic, and historically grounded.
Israel’s public life runs on Jewish time. The work week bows to Shabbat, school vacations align with Passover, and on Yom Kippur the country falls eerily quiet.
To critics, this looks like the trappings of a “Jewish theocracy.” But the reality is more subtle and deeply secular. The state’s calendar is Jewish, yet the society remains largely secular in practice. No one is compelled to pray or believe. Only to allow for pause, collectively, on the nation’s holy days.
This pause is a civilizational framework—paralleling how Christian-derived calendars quietly structure life in the West without making those nations theocracies.
In neither case are citizens forced into houses of worship or faith, yet in both cases a dominant historical religion bequeathed the template for communal time.
Israel’s use of the Hebrew calendar is codified in quasi-constitutional form. In 2018 the Knesset passed the Nation-State Basic Law, declaring the “Hebrew calendar is the official calendar of the State” and that the Jewish Sabbath and festivals are the legally established days of rest. What Israel’s laws mandate is a shared weekly pause and recognition of Jewish civil holidays — not a state religion. Work ceases on Saturday much as it does on Sunday in many Christian-coded democracies. Shops close on Yom Kippur as they do on Christmas Day in secular Western cities. The Israeli government notably lacks any power to enforce personal religious practice.
And tellingly, secular Israeli Jews — many of them non-believers — overwhelmingly defend and cherish the structure of Jewish time even as they ignore or redefine its religious content.
In a land of many internal divides, the Hebrew calendar provides a rare common rhythm, one that arguably stabilizes society much as the weekend does everywhere. Far from being a tool of clerical rule, Israel’s calendar is a conscious choice to live in Jewish time after generations when Jews could not.
Calendars as Power Structures
Time is never just time in human society. Every modern state operates on a structured calendar that encodes historical and cultural priorities. In sociological terms, time is a public institution. Nations tell their story through the rhythm of workweeks and holidays. As historian Benedict Anderson suggested in describing how calendars foster imagined communities, a shared sense of time is part of what makes a nation cohere. It coordinates millions of individual lives and signals collective priorities.
Consider the concept of the weekend. Why a seven-day week, with a two-day weekend on Saturday and Sunday (or Friday and Saturday, or Sunday alone in older practice)? There is nothing inevitable about that cycle. The seven-day week itself is of biblical origin, transmitted via Judaism and later adopted by Christianity and Islam. The very notion of a weekly day of rest, now enshrined in labor codes worldwide, comes straight from religious tradition.
By the mid-20th century, most industrialized countries settled on a five-day workweek with a common rest on Saturday-Sunday. This was neither a neutral nor a natural choice. But it was embraced for its social and economic benefits.
Likewise, revolutionary France sought to de-Christianize time itself in the 1790s with the French Republican Calendar, imposing a 10-day week to break the grip of Sunday. People resisted the new cadence, and Napoleon abandoned the experiment after a dozen years.
Inherited religious calendars are the norm. Nations have secularized the meaning of thems without discarding the structure. Whether it’s Sunday in Europe or the long Christmas-to-New Year’s break in the United States, ostensibly secular states still follow patterns set by majority faiths.
Time as coordination is distinct from time as worship. An atheist can appreciate a Sunday off or enjoy a Christmas market. A non-Christian in America still likely gets Christmas Day as a holiday simply because the nation has arranged itself that way.
In Israel’s case, a secular Jew (or a Christian or an Arab Muslim, for that matter) benefit from the slower pace of Shabbat — perhaps going to the beach or reading a book — without any rabbinical intrusion.
The state’s interest is in the pause itself, not how one spends it. Uniform days of rest are seen as a matter of “secular goals” like social welfare, not as acts of religious establishment.
No state manages to be all things to all people at all times. Instead, a dominant cadence is chosen and minorities are given carve-outs or parallel observances. This is exactly what the British Mandatory government did in Palestine. Article 23 of the Mandate mandate (1922) required recognizing “the holy days of the respective communities in Palestine as legal days of rest for the members of such communities.” In practice, that meant Shabbat for Jews, Friday for Muslims, Sunday for Christians — a pluralistic scheme under an overall British administrative week. Israel inherited parts of this approach, but as a Jewish-majority sovereign state it naturally elevated Shabbat to the primary national rest day.
The Christian Calendar in Secular Western Life
Walk through an American town early-ish on a Sunday morning, and you might notice the stillness. Stores open late or not at all, streets empty out in residential neighborhoods, and “Sunday quiet” reigns. A weekly pause that Americans take for granted. Come Christmas Day, that stillness becomes nearly universal. Businesses close. Families mostly stay at home (or the home of a relative). Highways unusually sparse. Officially, the United States has no state religion. But its rhythms betray its heritage. The Christian calendar quietly organizes much of American life, just as it does across Europe. This happens without any formal establishment of religion, due largely to historical momentum and legal allowances for “tradition.” By exploring how this came about, we can see that what Israel does with the Jewish calendar is a variation on a very common theme.
In the United States, Sunday rest was enforced by law for centuries in the form of “blue laws.” These were regulations banning most commercial activities on Sundays, dating back to the colonial era. Initially overtly religious in purpose (to ensure church attendance and Sunday piety), over time they were reframed as secular statutes promoting a common day of rest. American courts upheld these laws even as they acknowledged their religious roots. The landmark case was McGowan v. Maryland (1961), where the U.S. Supreme Court faced a challenge to Maryland’s law that prohibited Sunday retail sales of various goods. Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for the majority, conceded that “the original laws which dealt with Sunday labor were motivated by religious forces.” Yet he observed that “over the course of years, the purpose and effect [of Sunday laws] became secular — to provide a uniform day of rest for all.” The Court ruled that contemporary Sunday closing laws did not violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause, precisely because their primary rationale had become civil in nature. “The present purpose and effect of most of our Sunday Closing Laws is to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens,” and the fact this day is Sunday, “a day of particular significance for the dominant Christian sects, does not bar the State from achieving its secular goals.” In other words, as long as the state’s intent is rest and relaxation rather than religious observance, the law stands — even if, practically, it aligns with Christian custom.
This ruling, and several companion cases, form a fascinating mirror to Israel’s situation. In Braunfeld, Orthodox Jewish storekeepers in Pennsylvania argued that a law forcing them to close on Sunday (when they already closed on Saturday for religious reasons) put them at unfair economic disadvantage. The Supreme Court sympathized but ultimately upheld the law, effectively saying that the inconvenience to religious minorities did not make the Sunday law unconstitutional. The Court noted that the law “had a secular basis and did not make any religious practices unlawful.” One justice acknowledged it was “a cruel choice” for an Orthodox Jew to pick between livelihood and Sabbath, yet the majority deemed it an unfortunate side effect of a general law not aimed at religion. Such reasoning shows how deeply ingrained the notion of a common rest day was.
Over time, many blue laws were relaxed or repealed under commercial pressure, yet remnants persist. As of today, numerous U.S. states still prohibit certain activities on Sundays. For example, car dealerships are famously closed by law on Sundays in about a dozen states, a holdover from blue laws that legislators defend as providing an industry-wide day off. Some jurisdictions bar hunting on Sunday or restrict alcohol sales on Sunday mornings. In strongly churchgoing regions, these laws enjoy broad support from even non-devout people who simply like having a quiet Sunday morning. Culturally, sports leagues avoided scheduling major events on Sunday mornings for decades, and even the NFL (which plays on Sunday afternoons) long treated the early hours as off-limits out of respect for church time. It’s changing now, but the echo of a Christian sacral calendar remains just beneath the surface of American daily life.
Europe presents an even starker example. Most Western European countries have national laws or customs enforcing Sunday as a day of rest, often tied to historical church influence. Germany puts this in its constitution and its courts have struck down attempts to liberalize Sunday shopping. As recently as 2009, Germany’s highest court upheld the primacy of Sunday rest by nixing a Berlin law that allowed too many Sunday openings. The rationale given wasn’t “because God said so,” but because protecting Sunday ensures social and spiritual well-being.
Perhaps the most illustrative comparison is how Western societies handle religious holidays as national holidays. Christmas Day is a public holiday across the Western world, including in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia — even in countries with significant non-Christian populations. This is done under the secular veneer of it being a cultural holiday, a time for family, giving, Santa Claus and reindeer. But of course, it’s Christmas — literally a Christian holy day — being observed nationwide. No one is forced to attend Mass or believe in the Nativity, yet effectively an entire society changes rhythm for a religious festival. The sky doesn’t fall on pluralism because of this. Non-Christians take the day off work like everyone else.
One might ask: does this cause resentment among non-Christians or secular people in those countries? Generally, no — because the expectation to believe isn’t there. That isn’t so say some cranks won’t complain. Atheists can celebrate a secular Christmas (many do, calling it a season of goodwill, or just enjoying the cultural festivities). Jews and Muslims in Christian-majority countries often adapt by doing their own thing on those days, but they rarely call for abolishing Christmas as a holiday. Everyone understands it’s part of the national framework. Minorities do ask, rightly, for their own major holidays to be respected (for example, in the U.S. many cities now declare Eid or Yom Kippur school holidays in districts with large Muslim or Jewish populations, and employers increasingly allow personal days for them). This is all workable.
Jewish Time in the Diaspora: Private and Suppressed
For nearly two millennia before Israel’s re-founding, Jews lived as minorities in other peoples’ societies. This meant that the Jewish sense of time — the cycle of Sabbath and festivals commanded by Torah — often ran up against the dominant calendars of Christian and Muslim civilizations. The story of Jewish life in diaspora is, in one respect, the story of navigating a dissonant clock.
From medieval Europe’s strict Sunday observances to the Islamic world’s Friday-centric week, Jews had to find ways to honor their own Sabbath on Saturday while not falling afoul of (or economically behind in) societies that did not stop for it.
The result was frequently painful compromise, creative workaround, or outright suppression of Jewish time. Publicly sanctifying the Sabbath was usually impossible or restricted. Frequently the best option available to Jews was to keep it privately—if they were willing to pay the price (sometimes literally in fines or lost income, sometimes in social marginalization).
This context underscores a key point: the privatization of Jewish time was an artifact of Jewish powerlessness, not some voluntary secular ideal. When today’s critics suggest Israel should just let Sabbath observance be a private matter, they may not realize that such privatization historically was forced upon Jews by hostile or indifferent host societies. Zionism’s impulse to restore the Jewish Sabbath to public life was in part a reaction to that history of suppression.
In Christian Europe, especially after the rise of strong church influence on civil law, Sunday was a legally mandated day of rest and worship. For a Jew in, say, 17th-century Poland or 19th-century France, this meant that even if they strictly observed Saturday as their Sabbath (not working, closing their shop), they were still required to close on Sunday by law. They thus lost two days of productivity where Christian competitors lost one, a severe economic handicap.
Many Jews in Europe could not afford that and ended up working on their own Sabbath to survive, or violating Sunday laws to gain an edge — either choice entailing penalty of conscience or penalty of law.
There were also instances of deliberate calendar conflict used as a tool of oppression. In parts of medieval Europe, local lords or guilds would schedule market days on Saturday, essentially forcing Jews (who were often traders) to either violate the Sabbath or lose out on crucial business. In some cities, Jews petitioned for relief, sometimes granted by enlightened rulers who allowed them to trade on Sunday instead or have a corner of the market open on Friday. Other times the policy was intentionally punitive to reduce Jewish competition. In the Russian Empire of the 19th century, a common plight for Jewish craftsmen and merchants was the six-day workweek. Factories ran Monday through Saturday, and Sunday everything stopped. If a Jewish worker refused to work on Saturday, he could be fired. If a shopkeeper closed on Saturday, he had to remain closed on Sunday as well. Many Jewish immigrants to America in the late 1800s described how “inhospitable” the economic environment was to Shabbat observance.
Under Muslim rule, the dynamics were somewhat different but had parallels. Classical Islamic societies did not enforce a universal day of rest to the same extent as Christendom did — historically, markets in the Muslim world might open every day, though Friday midday was reserved for the congregational prayer (jumu’ah) when shops would close for a bit.
However, Jews under Islam often still needed to navigate the clash between Jumu’ah (Friday) and Shabbat (Saturday). In many places, the main trade day would be Friday or Saturday. In some Muslim regions, authorities explicitly forbade Jews (and Christians) from making any public display of their religious days. While Muslims were somewhat tolerant of “People of the Book” practicing privately, a Jew could not insist that a Muslim court respect Saturday as a reason for absence or contract default, for instance.
In the modern era, before political Zionism, public Jewish time scarcely existed. It was all underground or behind ghetto walls. The one place and period it had partial expression was in certain autonomous shtetl communities in Eastern Europe or the Ottoman millet system. In those contexts, Jews ran their internal affairs and of course closed their shops on Shabbat within the Jewish quarter. Even then, come Sunday the outside world’s rules would apply.
A poignant illustration can be drawn from the memoirs of 19th-century Jewish immigrants: they describe arriving in New York and being shocked to see Jews openly violating Shabbat (because they had to to survive economically). Some wept that in the old country, the Cossacks might harass them but at least the whole shtetl still respected Shabbat. In “free” America, freedom ironically meant freedom to break Shabbat since societal constraints had shifted to pure market forces. The sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel pointed out that in diaspora, Jews experienced “private time” as separate from “public time,” having to mentally live in two temporal orders – the Jewish calendar at home and the general calendar at work. This split was unnatural to traditional Judaism, which envisions an integrated life where the Sabbath is a societal institution, not just an individual choice.
Zionist thinkers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were acutely aware of this distortion. As early as Theodor Herzl, there were musings on what the time culture of a future Jewish state would be. Herzl himself, in Altneuland, imagined a secularly governed Jewish society but one where Shabbat was a delightful universal day of relaxation. One of the early labor movement’s paradoxes is that atheist kibbutzniks often insisted on observing Shabbat as a collective day off – not out of piety, but out of both respect for heritage and plain practical rest. The influential cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’am wrote an essay titled “Shabbat and Zionism” where he argued that “More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” In diaspora, Shabbat was the sanctuary of time that preserved Jewish identity when no public institutions did. He believed in a Jewish national home, Shabbat could blossom into its full public glory, not enforced by rabbis but by national consensus of identity.
All told, by 1900, the image of a fully Jewish public calendar was a distant dream — last experienced in antiquity. Zionist ideologues, aware of this, spoke of the need for a “Yom Menucha Le’umi” (a national day of rest) that would be Shabbat in a Jewish state. They argued it was not about forcing religion, but about restoring health and wholeness to the nation’s life. They frequently contrasted their vision with the diaspora reality. In exile, Jews had to beg for time off or break their religious laws. In a homeland, the Jewish rhythm would set the tone. And those who didn’t observe religiously would still benefit from a unified day off aligned with their heritage rather than someone else’s.
Zionism and the Restoration of Public Time
Long before Israel’s independence in 1948, the seeds of a public Jewish calendar were being sown in the yishuv (the pre-state Jewish community in the Holy Land).
Zionist leaders, thinkers, and institutions had to decide: what role would Shabbat and religious holidays play in the society they were building?
The answers were not obvious or unanimous. Zionism was a diverse movement, with secular socialists, bourgeois liberals, and religious traditionalists all in the mix.
Though they often clashed on religion-state issues, on one point there emerged a surprising consensus: the Jewish national home should mark Shabbat as its day of rest. Even resolute secularists agreed that the Hebrew calendar would provide the common schedule. The debates were about the degree and manner of observance, not the basic principle of Shabbat being the day off.
This consensus was solidified in the famous Status Quo Agreement of 1947, a letter from David Ben-Gurion (head of the Jewish Agency, soon to be Israel’s first Prime Minister) to the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party. In it, he assured religious Jews that the future state would honor certain fundamental elements of Jewish tradition. Chief among them: “The legal day of rest in the Jewish state will be Shabbat.” This line has been quoted endlessly since. Importantly, it did not spell out what kind of Shabbat regime would be enacted, just that Saturday would be the official weekend day.
But establishing that fact was itself momentous. It meant the workweek of the nascent Israeli society would differ from the surrounding Arab world (where Friday was the main day off) and from the British rulers’ system (who, in Mandate times, had generally observed Sunday as a government holiday). It would be distinctly Jewish.
Within the Zionist movement, ideological splits existed:
Labor Zionists (the dominant Mapai party under Ben-Gurion) were secular in belief but understood the need for a common day of rest. Many were influenced by socialism’s respect for workers’ rights and by the cultural idea of Shabbat as social welfare. The Histadrut (general labor federation) from early on included the Saturday day off in its workers’ agreements. Histadrut-owned enterprises (like the bus cooperative Egged and others) did not operate on Shabbat, largely due to internal policy. Partly this was to appease religious segments, partly to avoid dividing the workers, and partly because the leftist ethos valued “the worker’s right to a day off” (and Saturday made sense given Jewish tradition). So ironically, one of the largest secular institutions enforced a quasi-halakhic norm for essentially secular reasons.
Revisionist Zionists (the center-right-wing movement under Jabotinsky—a sort of pre-cursor to Likud) tended to be more liberal in terms of individualism and less inclined to religious compromise for its own sake. Jabotinsky himself was an atheist and a westernizer. He at one point suggested maybe Sunday should also be a day off in the future state to sync with the Christian world and give two days (like a modern weekend). His movement’s successor, the Herut party (later Likud), in early state years was relatively secular in outlook. Yet even they did not oppose Shabbat as the official rest day — they just fought against broader religious control. Menachem Begin, a deeply traditional (though not personally strictly observant) leader, famously defended the Jewish character of the state including respect for Shabbat. There’s a story that in the 1980s Begin insisted on stopping a security cabinet meeting before Shabbat started because he wouldn’t desecrate Shabbat in the official schedule (despite the urgent matters at hand). He said Israel managed to survive with Shabbat observance before, it will survive now.
Religious Zionists (Mizrachi party and others) of course saw the state as the fulfillment of Jewish destiny and strongly wanted halakhic observance in public life. They pushed for as much Sabbath strictness as possible (e.g. no public transportation, no official events on Shabbat, etc.) However, unlike Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) non-Zionists, the religious Zionists were willing to compromise in some areas to work with secular partners, as long as core symbols were preserved. For them, Shabbat as state day of rest was non-negotiable. But they would have liked more — ideally legislation declaring Shabbat’s sanctity, not just its status as a day off. They didn’t get everything on their wish list, but they got enough to satisfy for a while, thanks to Ben-Gurion’s concessions.
It’s notable that Ben-Gurion’s 1947 letter to Agudat Yisrael kept things vague. “It is clear that the legal day of rest will be Shabbat,” he wrote. But he did not detail what “rest” entails. The religious would read into it a hope that the state would outlaw public desecration. The secular read it as meaning simply no official work on that day. That ambiguity was intentional. For better or worse, that’s a classic Ben-Gurion tactic to forge consensus—while postponing the hard specifics.
Another domain of Zionist debate was transportation on Shabbat. During the British Mandate, some public transit did run on Saturdays (the British didn’t enforce a stop, and Jews needed to get around). In Haifa, a city famed for Jewish-Arab coexistence and a more secular workers’ character, the local buses historically ran on Shabbat even under early Israeli rule. Haifa is often cited as an exception where, due to a strong labor union agreement and mixed population, buses continued operating on a limited basis on Saturdays. Jerusalem, by contrast, had no public buses on Shabbat from early on. This was later formalized in the Transportation Ordinance, which codified the ban on running public bus lines during “rest days” unless exceptions apply.
That law instructs the Minister of Transport to consider “Jewish tradition” regarding the ban on motor vehicles on the Sabbath, effectively enshrining the no-bus practice into regulation. It does list exceptions: routes to hospitals, or to predominantly non-Jewish towns, or essential security routes can be approved.
For instance, some Arab towns have bus service on Saturday because their residents are not Jewish, and that was explicitly allowed. Also, certain remote kibbutzim or military installations had limited transit for necessity. The takeaway: the Israeli state deliberately preserved a Shabbat public atmosphere largely free of official traffic, again not to force people to synagogue but to mold the new society’s rhythm and respect the sentiments of the traditionalist segment. To new immigrants and visitors, a Jewish city with empty streets on Shabbat was a powerful cultural statement. It says “this place runs on Jewish time.”
It was, however, never absolute. There were always those who chafed. Secular liberals in cities like Tel Aviv wanted more freedom — the ability to grab a convenience item or go to the cinema on Friday night. On the flip side, religious hardliners wanted tighter restrictions (e.g., shutting down El Al (achieved eventually), or banning all sports events on Shabbat (a battle that went on for decades, since many Israeli soccer matches were traditionally held on Saturday afternoon; compromises were made such as not starting until Shabbat ended during winter, etc.)). The first few decades saw a series of “Shabbat wars” — protests, political fights — but interestingly, these were often resolved by municipal discretion.
The national government set the broad rule (no work, no (or limited) official transport), but municipalities were left to enforce or allow certain leisure activities.
Thus, Tel Aviv since the 1970s had many cafes, pubs, and movie theaters operating on Friday nights and Saturdays. This wasn’t strictly legal under national law (workers were involved), but the city more or less winked at it. They would fine a few places occasionally or require businesses to register as “members-only clubs” to circumvent laws, a legal fiction often used.
Jerusalem, in contrast, enforced closure of almost everything in Jewish areas, with the notable divide between West Jerusalem (Jewish, closed on Shabbat) and East Jerusalem (Arab-majority, where shops might open on Friday but close Friday mid-day for mosque and open on Saturday normally).
Haifa continued to allow not just buses but also had an active commercial scene on Shabbat relative to other cities—a reflection of its pluralistic makeup.
Municipal by-laws commonly forbade commerce on Shabbat but exempted places of entertainment and restaurants. This was part of the de facto status quo: you couldn’t legally keep your store open, but a cinema or cafe could operate (since those were seen as leisure, not making others work too strenuously, and meeting secular needs).
By the 21st century, the compromises of early days have both eroded and held. Shabbat is still officially the day of rest — no Israeli would schedule a government meeting or a school day on Saturday. That’s taken for granted. Public transit still largely doesn’t run (though some municipalities run limited lines. Some have started free shuttle services on Shabbat, since they aren’t charging a fare, they exploit a loophole to not violate the Transport Ministry restrictions).
Many malls and shops stay closed — but some open, technically illegally, and pay fines as a cost of doing business, especially in secular areas. Enforcement fatigue has set in.
Huge malls outside city centers began opening on Saturdays from the 1990s onward (e.g., the Haifa mall, the Ayalon mall near Tel Aviv, etc.), drawing crowds and forcing small retailers to either open illegally or suffer. This “commercialization” of Shabbat troubles both the religious (for obvious reasons) and some secular social activists (who see it exploiting workers and eroding the common family day).
It’s instructive to compare how Zionist leaders treated other religious questions versus Shabbat. On marriage and personal status (which we discussed in-depth in Sacred Authority), Ben-Gurion ceded full control to the Rabbinate, a decision that remains contentious and burdensome for secular Israelis (e.g., no civil marriage in Israel). That was a sphere he and others felt they could sacrifice to keep the peace with religious factions, perhaps thinking it affected fewer people day-to-day or could be circumvented by marrying abroad.
But on the calendar, the secular Zionists themselves deeply cared. They did not hand the calendar entirely to rabbinic authority. Instead, the state took ownership of the calendar. The Knesset declares holidays, government offices close on Shabbat by law, and the like. A striking aspect is that Israel’s determination of the Hebrew date and leap years etc. is done automatically by the ancient fixed calendar rules, not by any new religious pronouncements. Unlike in Temple times when the Sanhedrin would proclaim new moons, the modern state just follows the calculated Hebrew calendar.
The Chief Rabbinate’s role in this is to simply announce things like “the holiday begins at sundown…” for public awareness, same as a calendar on the wall would. So one might say the Zionist state nationalized the Jewish calendar, taking it out of exclusive rabbinic hands and making it a civil matter. That’s why the Knesset can legislate, for instance, that Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) is on 5 Iyar unless that’s a Friday or Saturday then move it, etc. — yes, Israeli law actually adjusts some holiday observances (national, not religious ones) for convenience.
Ok, so, what does Israel enforce or not enforce about Shabbat? It doesn’t enforce synagogue attendance (contrast this with some European countries centuries ago which had church attendance laws). It doesn’t send officers to knock on doors to see if you’re watching TV or smoking (there is no equivalent in Israel to Iran’s ridiculous morality police —it simply doesn’t exist). It doesn’t fine people for cooking a meal or using electricity. Private domain is entirely free. For example, an Israeli who wants to mow their lawn or hammer nails on Saturday? Legally, they can. Though if it’s a shared building, neighbors might resent the noise, but that’s a civil matter of courtesy, not religion. In Tel Aviv, you’ll see people jogging, blasting music on the beach on Shabbat — normal weekend activity.
The notion of “no pluralism” on Shabbat is laughable if you look at the social reality. In secular enclaves, Shabbat is experienced as a fun weekend day. Beach. Brunch. Bike rides. In religious enclaves, it’s experienced as prayer and rest. Each lives and lets live largely, as long as one group’s behavior doesn’t intrude on the other’s space. Of course some take extreme efforts to enforce their view on others—like Haredim littering the streets at the entrances to their neighbourhoods in Jerusalem with dumpsters, mattresses, and the like to prohibit secular Israelis and tourists from driving through.
Israelis themselves have mixed but often moderate views on Shabbat policy. Surveys consistently find a majority (including many secular) support “preserving the special character of Shabbat” in public — meaning they don’t want it to be a day like any other. Most citizens believe Shabbat should “have a unique character and give expression to Jewish tradition,” and they worry that full commercial activity on Shabbat would harm social and family life. At the same time, many want some services available — especially entertainment and transport in secular areas.
This has led to proposals for a new “Shabbat compact” — like making Sunday an additional day off so that businesses could close on Shabbat without losing much, and allowing more leisure activity on Shabbat. No such broad reform has passed yet, due to political gridlock. But the sentiment is revealing: Israelis aren’t neatly split religious vs secular on this; there’s a large in-between that is secular-traditional (often called masorti) who keep aspects of Shabbat culturally (family dinner, no work) but not religiously (they’ll watch TV, drive to see relatives). They generally appreciate that Israel slows down on Shabbat. It’s part of their Israeli identity, even if they personally are not strict.
There is also a cultural vs. religious framing to Shabbat in Israel. Many secular Israelis describe their Friday night dinner with family as “almost sacred” — not in a religious sense, but as a cherished ritual. Sociologically, it functions as Israel’s version of a Thanksgiving family dinner in the West, only weekly. They might light candles and say kiddush out of respect for grandma or just nostalgia, then proceed to enjoy a big meal without necessarily following other religious rules. This widespread practice means Shabbat maintains a cultural presence in even non-observant homes.
The Israeli state’s involvement is mostly at the level of ensuring a day of rest and preventing open commerce that would destroy that rest. It does not mandate attending synagogue or resting in the halakhic sense (Israelis can and do go to the beach, drive cars, watch movies on Shabbat if they choose). The public sphere is quieter, yes, but not uniformly pious. The only thing the state ensured is that neither religious nor secular has to be at work or school at that time and that the buses aren’t generally running (so the club-goers will take a shared taxi and the worshippers will walk). It’s a compromise that has held together, more or less, nearly eight decades.
Jewish Holidays as Civic Memory
Every nation has a calendar of holidays that tell its story. In Israel, that calendar is overwhelmingly Jewish — not in a theological sense, but in historical and cultural significance. The Jewish holidays observed as public holidays in Israel fall into a few categories:
Biblical-Historical Holidays: These are festivals with ancient origins that also often tie into national themes. Examples: Passover (Pesach), Shavuot (Pentecost), Sukkot (Tabernacles), Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). These come straight from the Hebrew Bible and have been celebrated by Jews worldwide for millennia. In Israel, they are days off and widely marked, but the state’s interest in them is not to enforce worship — it’s to uphold national tradition and continuity.
For instance, Passover is both a religious festival of freedom and a commemoration of the Exodus story, which is essentially the mythical birth of the Israelites as a people. In Israeli civic culture, Passover resonates as a festival of liberty, spring, and the idea of homeland (the Seder ends with “Next Year in Jerusalem”). Schools teach the Exodus story as part of national heritage. The Ministry of Education prepares breaks and curricula around it, focusing on themes of freedom from slavery, etc., rather than doctrine. Passover is a public holiday week. Businesses close, families gather, parks are full of picnickers. The state does do one coercive thing during Passover: historically, a Chametz Law (Hametz) prohibited display and sale of leavened bread in public during the 7 days (to respect tradition of eating matzah only). This law, passed in 1986, is mild (it exempted non-Jewish areas and private consumption), but was meant to preserve the holiday’s atmosphere. Enforcement was again lax — it mostly prevented big bakeries from hawking bread openly. Many secular Israelis actually follow the no-bread custom out of family tradition anyway. That’s an example of the fine line between tradition and law. A court recently narrowed the chametz ban’s scope, calling it more symbolic than practical.
For all these sorts of holiday you should note the absence of belief enforcement. No one is checking if you eat matzah or bread in your home on Passover (though many secular do adhere to eating matzah — about 67% of Israeli Jews avoid leaven, which is a voluntary cultural adherence). No one punishes you if you skip fasting on Yom Kippur — plenty of secular folks quietly eat at home, they just don’t flaunt it in public out of respect. The state’s stance is to provide the days off work/school and let society’s norms do the rest.Modern-National Holidays: These are unique to Israel’s modern history, instituted by the state. Chief among them: Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut) and Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers (Yom Hazikaron) immediately the day before Independence Day. Also Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah). These days have no religious origin. Rhey were created by Knesset laws in the to commemorate pivotal events. The tone and observance of these days are instructive about how Israel uses calendar for civic memory:
On Memorial Day (for soldiers and terror victims), a 2-minute siren sounds nationwide in evening and morning, and people stand at attention. It’s a secular ritual with almost religious reverence. The state organizes ceremonies in cemeteries, broadcasts sad music on radio, and basically the whole country enters a somber mode. Workplaces might close early or have memorial gatherings. This is akin to Americans observing Memorial Day or Brits on Remembrance Sunday, but even more intense because Israel is small and nearly everyone has been touched by these losses. There’s zero religious content mandated. The ceremonies are nationalistic and reflective (though they often include reciting Yizkor, the Jewish memorial prayer, which is more or less cultural at this point). It’s about national solidarity and sacrifice, not theology.
Independence Day is a joyous holiday, but notably Israeli Independence Day does get a slight religious nod. The Chief Rabbinate declared it should have a prayer of thanksgiving and some see it as quasi-religious event (comparing it to ancient deliverances). However, the state ceremony on Independence Eve is thoroughly civil. Flag raisings. Torch lightings. Military bands, etc. Many families barbecue (it’s basically the Israeli version of Fourth of July with hummus rather than hot dogs). It’s a day off work. Fireworks, not prayers, dominate the night.
Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) memorializes six million murdered Jews. The day’s observances: a morning siren for 2 minutes, where traffic stops on highways as people stand silent. A spontaneous civil ritual that’s become iconic. Restaurants and entertainment venues close the night before in respect. Television broadcasts Holocaust documentaries. It’s deeply emotional nationally, but again, non-religious. In fact, the bulk of the ultra-Orthodox initially did not like Yom Hashoah’s date (they prefer the religious mourning day of Tisha B’Av) — but the secular state’s date stuck and even Haredim now largely observe it. This is an example of the state forging a new civil holiday that became sacrosanct in civil religion terms, without any halakhic origin.
There are other state holidays: Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day, marking reunification in 1967) and Yom HaAliyah (honoring immigration, recently added) and others commemorating things like Begin’s or Rabin’s memorial days.
All these modern days transmit specific collective memories: heroism, tragedy, identity, unity. None involve requiring religious practice (though religious people might integrate prayer – e.g., some say Hallel psalms on Independence Day in synagogue to thank God, though that’s a personal choice). The state events remain secular/national in character.Religious Minority Holidays: By law and practice, Israel lets non-Jews take their own holidays. For example, Muslims in Israel have days off for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Christians for Christmas and Easter (the government calendar for Christian Arabs often uses the Eastern Orthodox dates, since many are Greek Orthodox or Catholic). These are not national holidays for everyone, but they are officially recognized for those communities. Arab schools close. Arab soldiers can get leave. Et cetera. This parallels how Western countries might treat, say, Jewish holidays — not national holidays but allow Jews to take off.
It’s vital to note that no one in Israel is penalized for not observing a religious ritual on a holiday. On Yom Kippur, secular often bike – fine. On Passover, plenty of secular quietly have pizza. No chametz police are barging in—such an entity doesn’t exist. On Sukkot, building a sukkah (booth) is a mitzvah for religious — many secular don’t, and nothing happens to them.
State broadcasting schedules also adapt to holidays, in ways reminiscent of how Western media adapt to Christmas etc. On religious holidays, Israeli TV might broadcast traditional songs or films like “The Ten Commandments” (an old tradition, much as U.S. TV plays “The Greatest Story Ever Told” at Easter). On Yom Hashoah, channels air Holocaust testimonies or Holocaust-themed movies continuously. On Independence Day, the channels air the torch-lighting and then a lineup of comedy skits and concerts — shaping the mood. These are subtle tools of national cohesion. The whole country, religious or secular, tunes into similar content and thus shares the experience. In diaspora, Jews celebrated holidays mostly in their homes or synagogues, isolated from general culture; in Israel, these days dominate the public airwaves and space, making them part of everyone’s consciousness.
Take Hanukkah for example. A minor religious holiday that has become culturally huge in Israel. Schools are closed for a Hanukkah break, kids light candles each of 8 nights, and there are public menorah lightings in city squares (often by Chabad rabbis, but also secular institutions do it). For Israelis, Hanukkah’s story of the Maccabees (Jews fighting for freedom in 2nd century BCE) is taught as a proto-Zionist tale of national liberation and cultural resilience. The Education Ministry’s curriculum emphasizes the historical fight for independence and cleansing of the Temple, less the miraculous oil. So again, a holiday’s religious miracle aspect is downplayed; the national liberation aspect is highlighted. It’s used to instill pride and continuity with ancient Judea’s sovereignty. While in diaspora Hanukkah became big to compete with Christmas, in Israel it stands on its own as a heroic history festival. The state sponsors massive youth events (torch relays, etc.). None of this requires believing the oil burned 8 days by miracle; it’s about celebrating Jewish heroism and identity.
The Jewish holiday cycle in Israel has been adapted into a state civic calendar that reinforces Jewish peoplehood and Israeli nationhood.
Secular Israel and the Participation Paradox
Israel calls itself a Jewish state, yet a substantial portion of its Jewish population is secular or non-religious. This creates a fascinating paradox: many who don’t personally observe Jewish law still partake in Jewish time-based rituals and traditions at incredibly high rates. The society is at once secular in outlook and traditional in practice. How can that be? The answer lies in the complex identities Israeli Jews hold — where faith, identity, participation, and habit are distinct strands.
First, let’s quantify “secular” in Israel. Surveys typically categorize Israeli Jews roughly as: about a third or so as secular (Hebrew: Hiloni), another third or so as “traditional” (Masorti, meaning moderately observant or just attached to tradition), with the remainder split more between religious Zionist (Dati), and ultra-Orthodox (Haredi). The specific figures vary, but secular are the largest group, often around half—sometimes incorporating the non-religious masorti. However, “secular” in Israel doesn’t usually mean devoid of all Jewish practice. It usually means not religiously observant in a halakhic sense (they don’t strictly keep kosher, don’t pray daily, etc.). Yet most seculars still celebrate major holidays and observe certain cultural customs. Surveys show that the majority of Israeli Jews say they always or usually light Shabbat candles. Even among the self-declared secular subset, about a third of them light Shabbat candles and a significant amount (maybe one-fifth) keep kosher at home.
Almost two-thirds of Israeli Jews keep kosher at home (meaning they avoid non-kosher foods at least at home, though some might eat non-kosher out). This includes a good chunk of seculars who for family peace or upbringing still don’t bring pork or shellfish into the house. They may not care religiously, but “that’s how mom did and I continue.” So practice can be situational — cultural at home, freer outside. It shows habit and identity (kosher home feels Jewish-ish) vs personal belief (they don’t think it’s sinful to break it, they just choose tradition at home). Israeli sociologists have long noted Israel is a very traditional society even as it’s not very religious.
Why do secular Israelis defend Jewish time? Partly because it’s tied to national identity — giving it up feels like eroding Israel’s Jewish character, which even secular Zionists cherish as a unique identity (distinct from being generic Western or from the Arab Middle East). There’s also an element of simply loving the social aspects. Shabbat dinner with family, the calm of Yom Kippur’s nearly car-free day, the fun of Purim costumes. These experiences are pleasurable or meaningful independent of religious conviction.
So, secular Israelis understand and defend Jewish time often in civil terms. They’ll say: “Of course Saturday is our day off — we’re a Jewish country and that’s our tradition. But I want a bus to go to the beach.” They don’t see it as all-or-nothing. They appreciate a slower Saturday but also want options for personal freedom. That debate is internal but rarely do secular voices call to, say, switch the national day off to Sunday (once in a while it’s proposed as adding Sunday as second day, but none say drop Saturday as rest — that’s basically off the table). So even the most anti-clerical Israeli tends to be fine with the idea that Yom Kippur should be respected publicly or that state ceremonies have biblical references; they just don’t want religious parties deciding civil laws like marriage or budgets disproportionately.
Diaspora Projection and Misreading
It is often in the eyes of outsiders, particularly Diaspora Jews in liberal Western societies, that Israel’s blend of secular governance and Jewish public culture gets cast in alarmist terms. Words like “theocracy,” “religious coercion,” and “slippery slope” surface in American Jewish op-eds and organizational statements whenever Israel’s religion-state issues flare up. These reactions reveal more about diaspora psyches than Israeli realities.
American and European Jews, accustomed to being minorities in Christian or secular countries, carry historical fears of religious dominance. They tend to conflate Israel’s civil Judaism with the kind of coercion they have known or dreaded as minorities.
When Israel’s government makes a decision influenced by Orthodox parties — say, attempting to legislate more Shabbat restrictions or maintain the Western Wall’s Orthodox prayer rules — diaspora Jewish leaders sometimes react as if Israel is on the brink of turning into a Jewish Iran. We see headlines like “Beware the creeping theocracy in Israel” or “Religious coercion threatens Israel’s democracy.” For instance, there was talk of a Haredi-backed bill to shut down more businesses on Shabbat nationwide, major American Jewish organizations voiced deep concern that Israel was abandoning pluralism and that secular Israelis’ rights were under siege. To Israelis on the ground, this sounded overblown — in practice, such laws either don’t pass or are weakly enforced, and daily life remains diverse. But to diaspora observers, even the symbolism rang alarm bells.
Why this hypersensitivity? American Jews, especially, live in a country founded on separation of church and state. They have seen how being a small minority in a Christian-dominated culture could lead to pressure to assimilate or exclusion. Historically, they faced Sunday laws that penalized them economically (like those blue laws we discussed earlier). They carry collective memory of quotas, of prayers in school that were Christian, of the need for a secular public square to feel equal. So any state endorsement of religion is suspect to them. So diaspora Jews sometimes assume any entanglement of synagogue and state must mirror the oppression or marginalization they have fought in gentile lands.
Diaspora commentary sometimes fails to make that distinction. The minority memory of always being on the short end of religious establishment fosters a knee-jerk alarm when any religion is established, even if in Israel’s case it’s the Jews themselves doing it democratically. For example, older generation American Jewish leaders often invoked the specter of Israel turning into a Halachic state like Iran whenever ultra-Orthodox influence grew. In the 1990s, as Haredi parties gained clout, some diaspora voices said Israel risked alienating secular Israelis and Western Jews with “religious zealotry.” Things secular Israelis themselves would never accept en masse. Which isn’t to say that the Haredi don’t push too far. Fortunately, democracy holds. Those alarmist predictions have never quite materialized (Israeli cafes still serve shellfish to those who want it, Tel Aviv clubs still open on Friday nights). But diaspora discourse remained anxious.
Shared Time, Not a Theocracy
Israel’s story is not one of theocracy. The Jewish state has drawn on ancient rhythms to structure modern life, but it has steadfastly not enforced theology. In Israel, no inquisitors come to your door on Friday night, no “Shabbat police” patrol the streets. What Israel enforces is a pause, a shared cadence. It is, in fact, analogous to what virtually every democracy does. Namely, privileging a majority cultural calendar for the common good.
Israel does not enforce Jewish belief. There is no law compelling anyone to profess a faith nor to don tefillin. No one is there to enforce observance of kashrut at home. A secular Israeli can live their entire life without a hint of religious observance and face no legal penalty or social ostracism beyond perhaps a kvetching grandmother.
The state’s Basic Laws (a sort of quasi-constitution we talked about in The Unfinished State) explicitly protect freedom of conscience and freedom from religious coercion. The High Court has struck down attempts at overreach. One can sleep in, hit the beach, binge Netflix or pray in shul — it’s your own business.
The evidence is overwhelming that you can have a culturally particular calendar without mandating religion. Indeed, Israel’s public sphere is if anything less religiously regimented than that of some Western countries.
Six days a week, Israel is a wonderful, rambunctious “hi-tech” (I’m sorry but that phrasing really grates on me), up-all-night, argue-about-everything democracy. But on the seventh day, a quiet descends. Not by force of ayatollahs, but by the consent of the governed and the weight of tradition. That pause gives even the secular Israeli a chance to unplug (figuratively if not literally) in a way few other hyper-modern societies do. It binds families. The institution of Friday-night dinner, nearly sacrosanct across Israeli society, keeps generations in touch in an age of virtual everything. It binds the nation: at 11 AM on Memorial Day, when sirens wail and motorists stand still, Israelis feel a profound unity of experience — a cadence that reaffirms that “we are in this together.”
Some of the common pitfalls in discussing Israel often come from treating “religion” as a bogeyman or a binary. Israel is unabashedly Jewish in public culture and vigorously liberal in personal freedoms. It means that Israel on Shabbat looks a bit like America on Sunday in the 1950s — mostly closed, family-focused — yet without requiring anyone to go to church (or shul).
And that, ultimately, is at the heart of it. Israel’s cultural language is infused with Judaism. Whether Shabbat rest, Exodus liberty, ancient mourning and joy transposed into modern life. It is spoken in the streets and understood by all, whether uttered as prayer or as joke or simply as silent assent. Israelis have chosen to speak the language of Jewish time in their civic life. In doing so, they have not made their state less democratic or less free.
Israel’s Jewish calendar is the scaffolding of national culture, as Sunday is for the West. It is, in essence, the embodiment of Israel’s dual identity: at once Jewish and free.
Every Friday, the same thing still happens. Things slow down and then come to (more or less) a stop for Saturday—regardless of what the tourist family might want on their next visit. Not because a rabbi ordered it. Not because belief was enforced. But because a society decided that shared time matters—that a people who spent centuries living on borrowed calendars would finally live on their own.
I don’t begrudge the family their annoyance at sites they wanted to visit being closed or harder to reach. Or restaurants closed. In that situation, it’s not exactly convenient. That said, I hope they found some meaning in it.
Tomorrow is Friday, so I’ll wish you an early Shabbat shalom and hope you too manage to take a break from the cacophony of daily life and find some rest—in whatever way speaks to you.
— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor, Israel Brief