Judaism: Switching into and out of the religion in the US and Israel

Terminology

Throughout this report, religious switching refers to a change between the religious group in which a person says they were raised (during their childhood) and their religious identity now (in adulthood). The rates of religious switching are based on responses to two survey questions we asked of adults ages 18 and older:

“What is your current religion, if any?”
“Thinking about when you were a child, in what religion were you raised, if any?”

The responses to these two questions allow us to calculate what percentage of the public has left a religious group (or “switched out”) and what percentage has entered (or “switched in”). This kind of switching can take place without any formal rite or ceremony.

We have analyzed switching into and out of five widely recognized, worldwide religions to allow for consistent comparisons around the globe. Specifically, this report analyzes change between the following groups: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, other religions, religiously unaffiliated adults, and those who did not answer the question.

For example, someone who was raised Buddhist but now identifies as Christian would be considered as having switched religions – as would someone who was raised Christian but is now unaffiliated.

However, switching within a religious tradition, such as between Catholicism and Protestantism, is not captured in this report. (Refer to Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study for an analysis of switching in the United States that does count some switching within Christianity. Read “4 facts about religious switching within Judaism in Israel” for an analysis of switching within Judaism.)

Religiously unaffiliated refers to people who answer a question about their current religion (or their upbringing) by saying they are (or were raised as) atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” This category is sometimes called “no religion” or “nones.”

Other religions is an umbrella category. It contains a wide variety of religions that are not in the other categories and that have survey sample sizes too small to analyze separately in most countries. This includes Sikhism, Jainism, the Baha’i faith, African traditional religions, Native American religious traditions, and others.

Disaffiliation rates refer to the percentage of adults who say they were raised in a religion but are now religiously unaffiliated (or have no religion).

Net gains/losses are the differences between the percentage of survey respondents who say they were raised in a particular religious category (as children) and the percentage who identify with that same category at the time of the survey (as adults). The “net” gain or loss takes into account both sides of the equation – those who have left and those who have entered the group.

Retention rates show, among all the people who say they were raised in a particular religious group, the percentage who still describe themselves as belonging to that group today.

Accession rates (also called entrance rates) show, among all the people who describe themselves as belonging to a particular religious group today, the percentage who were raised in some other group.

This section describes religious switching into and out of Judaism, reviewing the net gains and losses for Judaism in Israel and the United States, what percentage of adults who were raised Jewish are still Jewish (i.e., retention rates), which religious groups those who have left Judaism have switched into, and where Judaism has the largest shares of new entrants (i.e., the highest accession rates).

Around 80% of the world’s Jews live in just two countries: Israel and the United States. Both countries were included in our 2024 survey, allowing us to examine religious switching among a majority of the world’s Jewish population.²⁴

However, people may identify as Jewish in a multitude of ways, including ethnically, culturally, religiously or by family background. In this report, we use the term “Jewish” to mean only religious identity, because the survey questions used in the analyses ask about a person’s current religion and what religious group they were raised in (their childhood religion).

Net gains and losses for Judaism

Viewed as a percentage of all U.S. adults, few people have left or joined Judaism. But Jewish adults make up only a small fraction of the U.S. population to begin with (about 2%).

Remaining Jewish

Most people who were raised Jewish in Israel and the U.S. still identify this way today, resulting in high Jewish retention rates in both countries – though it’s higher in Israel than in the U.S.

Leaving Judaism

In the U.S., about a quarter of adults who were raised Jewish no longer identify as Jewish.
In Israel, fewer than 1% of adults who were raised Jewish no longer identify as such.
Most adults who have left Judaism in both countries now are unaffiliated (i.e., they identify religiously as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”).

Entering Judaism

Most Jewish adults in Israel and the U.S. were raised Jewish, meaning the “accession” (or entrance) rates into Judaism are fairly low in both places.
But of the two countries, the U.S. has the higher accession rate, with 14% of Jewish Americans saying they were raised outside of Judaism, compared with just 1% of Israeli Jewish adults.

Refer to Pew Research Center’s “4 facts about religious switching within Judaism in Israel” and “Denominational switching among U.S. Jews: Reform Judaism has gained, Conservative Judaism has lost” for analyses of switching within Judaism.

Has Judaism experienced net gains or losses from religious switching?

Table showing few are leaving, joining Judaism in Israel and the U.S.

In Israel and the U.S., the proportion of the overall populations that have either switched into or switched out of Judaism is very small (1% or less). This is true in both places, even though Jewish adults make up a sizable majority of all adults in Israel and a small sliver of all U.S. adults.²⁵

What percentage of people raised Jewish are still Jewish?

Table showing most Israeli and U.S. adults raised Jewish still identify that way

The Jewish retention rate is high in both Israel and the U.S. In Israel, virtually all adults who were raised Jewish still identify as Jewish today.²⁶ In the U.S., 76% of adults who were raised Jewish still identify this way.²⁷

Which religious groups have former Jews switched to?

Analyzing retention rates also sheds light on the religious groups that former Jewish adults have joined. In the U.S., 17% of adults who were raised Jewish now identify as unaffiliated, while 2% now identify as Christian and 1% now identify as Muslim.

Between the United States and Israel, which country has seen larger shares of new entrants into Judaism?

In both the U.S. and Israel, the majority of people who currently identify as Jewish say they were raised Jewish, resulting in low “accession” (or entrance) rates into Judaism in both countries.

Table showing large majorities of Israeli and U.S. Jews were raised Jewish

In the U.S., 14% of Jewish adults say they were raised outside of Judaism. This includes 7% who were raised as Christians and 6% who were raised religiously unaffiliated.

The U.S. data comes from Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed 36,908 adults. Because of this large sample size, we are able to analyze and report results for relatively small religious groups in the U.S. – including Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims.↩

Every number in the accompanying table – including in the middle two columns – was calculated as a percentage of all adults surveyed in each country. For example, the second row shows that 2% of all U.S. adults say they were raised as Jews, 0% of all U.S. adults have left Judaism, 0% of all U.S. adults have entered Judaism, and 2% of all U.S. adults currently identify as Jews. The net change for Judaism in the U.S. due to switching over the lifetimes of the survey respondents is calculated by subtracting the current share of U.S. adults who are Jewish (2%) from the share who say they were raised Jewish (2%). The difference shows no net gain or loss for Judaism from switching across the whole U.S. population (not just U.S. Jews).↩

Throughout this report, survey estimates are rounded to the nearest integer. In the 2024 Pew Research Center survey, the share of Israelis raised Jewish who are still Jewish rounds to 100%. However, this survey-based estimate does not necessarily mean that every person in Israel who was raised Jewish still considers themselves Jewish.↩

The definition of Jewishness in this report is based solely on religious self-identification: Survey respondents are classified as Jewish only if they answer a question about their religion by saying they are Jewish. This definition is consistent with the way other religious groups, such as Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, are defined in this report. But it is different from the way the Center has defined Jewishness in some past surveys that delved deeply into Jewish identity, belief and practice in the U.S. For example, our reports “Jewish Americans in 2020” and “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” (2013) classified survey respondents as Jewish if they said either that a) their religion was Jewish or b) they considered themselves Jewish aside from religion, had at least one Jewish parent, and did not belong to any other religion. The latter group, sometimes called “Jews of no religion” or “cultural Jews,” has different levels of religious switching (including lower retention rates) than “Jews by religion” do. Refer to the 2013 and 2020 survey reports for more detailed examinations of U.S. Jewish retention rates and switching between branches of American Judaism.↩