Coming to you from israel

[jewishAtheist]

Hello atheistforums.org
I am a jewish atheist (big surprise) from Israel. I do not believe in any god or religion, in case the "jewish" prefix caused you to doubt that.

While I am used to having debated and conversations about religion and god, they are usually in hebrew and aout Judaism, with israelis.

I am happy to see there aren't many like me here (and why would there be), since i was looking for a place to hear opinions of people from around the world, which can't be done in a hebrew speaking forum.

I will also be happy to try and answer questions about Israel (education, religion, how our media covers certain events, etc...) and Judaism, since i still live in israel, and was raised as a religious jew in israel - meaning i had to learn the jewish bible in school.

[Dystopia]

Hey welcome abroad. I have a question, is Israel a secular state in practice or are atheist or people with other religions discriminated? Is religion taught in schools as a mandatory class? Is there social prejudice against atheists? How many percentage of people are theists and atheists? I would be glad if you could answer, I never considered this questions regarding Israel

[Confused Ape]

Hello. Hope you enjoy the forum.

[Marsellus Wallace]

Hey, neighbor. wts up ? I'm from the motherfucking Egypt.

How about that jewish bible tho, funny shit right there

[vorlon13]

I find the 'special' treatment of the ultra-super-hyper-uber-omni-orthodox folks in Israel to be rather funny (and them themselves, of course), but I suppose actually being in Israel with them, as an atheist, could be pretty damn annoying.

[jewishAtheist]

Hey welcome abroad. I have a question, is Israel a secular state in practice or are atheist or people with other religions discriminated? Is religion taught in schools as a mandatory class? Is there social prejudice against atheists? How many percentage of people are theists and atheists? I would be glad if you could answer, I never considered this questions regarding Israel

The answers to most of your questions vary from a place to place in the country. In most of the industrial and "enlightened" part of israel - there isn't any prejudice. Some (actually ALOT) of the people that built Israel were atheist jews. However, there are some EXTREMLY religious places in israel. The biggest being "Bnei Brack" - a city whih is just feild with very elgious jews. If you were to pass in some of these places on saturday in a vehicle, a diper ful of sh** would be thrown at you. I'm serious about it, it happens more often to people who do that mistake than it doesn't, probably.

About prejudice toward atheist. Well, in Judaism, you can't convert out of Judaism. That just isn't a thing. You can declare you worship satan but if your mother was jewish you will still be considered a jew by jewish standarts. Therefore, religoius jews still see atheists as "one of their own" who was misled or somthing. So there is a lot of prejudice (inspired by their edjucation - the religious peolple here have their own education system, which dedicates alot to bible and almost nothing to math and english), but if the atheist dosn't "attack", there is also love.

Anyway, in the more "western" parts of israel - Tel Aviv and its sroundings - everything is accepted, more like NYC (is that a good example?) than jerusalem.

Ragarding bible in education. In israel every highschool class ends with a final called " a Bagrut test", that credit you with certain amount of "points". The amout of points a class has is its weight when claculating your final avarage (which is one of the main factors of whether you will be accepted to a university).
To get a real highschool diplome, You must have at least a 21 points "Bagrut". The avarage going-to-university student has 30.
Bible is mandatory and credit you 2 points, so that is 1/15 of the reason you will get accepted or not to higher education.

Of course, religion isn't usually taught as true (even though nothing happens to teachers who say that, usually). Some bible teachers are actually atheists themselves, I've heard of more than one.

but the real problem is that the public school system dosen't start with the bible in highschool, where you are a critical thinker, BUT WHEN YOU ARE 5. In elementry school nobody talks about atheism, I assure you.

About atheism percetage - I think at leat 15% would say they don't believe in a personal god, probably more. But even the ones who do are more simillar in their actions and opinions to christians than to not-very-extreme jews.

Hey, neighbor. wts up ? I'm from the motherfucking Egypt.

How about that jewish bible tho, funny shit right there

How 'bout that.
I find the jewish bible rather sad, but maybe it's because I am actually affected by some of its dumb rules.

[Minimalist]

Shalom!

[Jenny A]

Welcome!

I think you will bring a very interesting perspective to this forum. We are mostly besieged by Evangelical Christians here.

[CindysRain]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I'm fairly new to atheist forums, and didn't realize there were atheist Jews, interesting.

[Dystopia]

Hey welcome abroad. I have a question, is Israel a secular state in practice or are atheist or people with other religions discriminated? Is religion taught in schools as a mandatory class? Is there social prejudice against atheists? How many percentage of people are theists and atheists? I would be glad if you could answer, I never considered this questions regarding Israel

The answers to most of your questions vary from a place to place in the country. In most of the industrial and "enlightened" part of israel - there isn't any prejudice. Some (actually ALOT) of the people that built Israel were atheist jews. However, there are some EXTREMLY religious places in israel. The biggest being "Bnei Brack" - a city whih is just feild with very elgious jews. If you were to pass in some of these places on saturday in a vehicle, a diper ful of sh** would be thrown at you. I'm serious about it, it happens more often to people who do that mistake than it doesn't, probably.

About prejudice toward atheist. Well, in Judaism, you can't convert out of Judaism. That just isn't a thing. You can declare you worship satan but if your mother was jewish you will still be considered a jew by jewish standarts. Therefore, religoius jews still see atheists as "one of their own" who was misled or somthing. So there is a lot of prejudice (inspired by their edjucation - the religious peolple here have their own education system, which dedicates alot to bible and almost nothing to math and english), but if the atheist dosn't "attack", there is also love.

Anyway, in the more "western" parts of israel - Tel Aviv and its sroundings - everything is accepted, more like NYC (is that a good example?) than jerusalem.

Ragarding bible in education. In israel every highschool class ends with a final called " a Bagrut test", that credit you with certain amount of "points". The amout of points a class has is its weight when claculating your final avarage (which is one of the main factors of whether you will be accepted to a university).
To get a real highschool diplome, You must have at least a 21 points "Bagrut". The avarage going-to-university student has 30.
Bible is mandatory and credit you 2 points, so that is 1/15 of the reason you will get accepted or not to higher education.

Of course, religion isn't usually taught as true (even though nothing happens to teachers who say that, usually). Some bible teachers are actually atheists themselves, I've heard of more than one.

but the real problem is that the public school system dosen't start with the bible in highschool, where you are a critical thinker, BUT WHEN YOU ARE 5. In elementry school nobody talks about atheism, I assure you.

About atheism percetage - I think at leat 15% would say they don't believe in a personal god, probably more. But even the ones who do are more simillar in their actions and opinions to christians than to not-very-extreme jews.

Well I guess it's like in my country, in urban areas people are generally not concerned about your atheism, even though there is still prejudice, mainly from older people that tend to be ultra conservative.

The bible is mandatory in highschool classes? Seriously? Where I live a huge problem arose simply because there were crosses in classrooms, they were prohibited and removed later. And religious education (Christianity mainly) is completely legal in public schools, however the parent/guardian must consent, it is not a requirement for your school progress.