Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Since its independence in 1948, Israel has defined itself as a Jewish and democratic State.[1] Jews around the world who meet certain criteria are entitled to become citizens of the State under the Law of Return.[2] In 1967, Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. To the present day, these territories are disputed and the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice consider them to be under occupation, and Israel’s settlements are accordingly deemed illegal.[3]
Sunni Arab Palestinians are the biggest non-Jewish group in the country, and most Israeli Christians are also Palestinian Arabs. Both groups hold Israeli citizenship. Most Christians are Catholics (belonging to the Melkite Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches), followed by the Greek Orthodox. Other minorities include the Druze, designated in 1957 as a distinct ethnic community by the government.[4]
Israel has no formal constitution,[5] but relies on a body of Basic Laws that collectively serve as an uncodified constitution. These Basic Laws hold constitutional authority and, through judicial interpretation and super-majority entrenchment provisions, effectively function as constitutional law. Therefore, it is necessary to refer to the 1948 Declaration of Independence for the provisions relating to religious freedom. According to that declaration, “the State of Israel will … uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race, creed, or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education, and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”[6]
The Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty is the foundation of fundamental freedoms such as that of religion.[7]
In July 2018, the Parliament of Israel, the Knesset, passed a law entitled the “Basic Law: Israel - the Nation State of the Jewish People”,[8] which proclaimed: “The Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.” Thus, the State of Israel is “the nation state of the Jewish People, in which it realises its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination … The realisation of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People.”[9]
The Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land (ACOHL) heavily criticised the law. In a statement released in November 2018, they said: “We, as the religious leaders of the Catholic Churches, call on the authorities to rescind this Basic Law and assure one and all that the State of Israel seeks to promote and protect the welfare and the safety of all its citizens.”[10] In July 2021, the Supreme Court rejected petitions against the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law.[11]
Despite the special status for Jews in Israel, Judaism is not the official state religion. State institutions are secular and function according to the model of western democracies. Nonetheless, provisions specific to Judaism predominate in social practices, such as the observance of the Sabbath and kosher food. These can create tensions between observant and non-religious Jews.
Non-Jewish citizens have in theory the same civil rights and obligations as Jewish citizens; they can, for example, vote in elections, join political parties, and be elected to the Knesset. Still, their role is insignificant in political life and, with certain exceptions – notably the Druze – they are not drafted into the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Effectively, this denies Arab Israelis various benefits that come with military service,[12] including housing subsidies, land grants, tuition support, and preferential treatment in university admissions and public employment. Service in the Israel Defence Forces is widely regarded as a key pathway to social integration and civic belonging.[13]
Conversions from one religion to another are legal but face considerable negative social pressure. Proselytising is legal for all religious groups. However, section 174A of the Israeli Penal Code prohibits offering material benefits as an inducement to conversion. According to sections 368 (a) and (b) of the Penal Code, it is also illegal to convert a person under 18 unless one parent is a member of the religious group seeking to convert the minor.[14]
Matters relating to personal status are governed by the recognised religious communities to which a citizen belongs. There is no civil marriage, though such marriages performed abroad are recognised.
In March 2023, the Knesset enacted legislation permitting hospitals to ban the entry of leavened products (hametz) during Passover. The law was met with criticism from opposition parties, who denounced it as a form of religious coercion liable to alienate secular segments of the population. The debate surrounding hametz in medical facilities has become emblematic of broader social tensions concerning the role of religion in Israeli public life. While proponents of the measure argue that it safeguards the rights of observant patients to maintain a kosher environment during the holiday, detractors contend that it infringes upon individual freedoms, particularly those of secular Jews and non-Jewish citizens.[15]
Incidents and developments
During the reporting period, multiple incidents of religious based violence were recorded involving attacks on persons and places of worship.
In January 2023, Jerusalem’s Anglican cemetery was desecrated, with roughly 30 graves being affected. Briefly after the incident, two Jewish teenagers from central Israel were arrested.[16] Jerusalem’s Anglican Archbishop, Hosam Naoum, condemned the attack strongly stating: “This really shows a clear hate crime towards Christians in Jerusalem which we absolutely reject and condemn”.[17] In January 2023, a community building of the Maronite church in Ma’alot-Tarshiha in northern Israel was attacked with religious items being smashed.[18]
In February 2023, an American Jewish tourist vandalised a statue of Christ in the Church of the Flagellation in Old Jerusalem. According to the Custody of the Holy Land, it was the fifth incident of violence against the church within weeks.[19] In March 2023, two Jewish men entered the Greek Orthodox Church of Gethsemane where the Tomb of the Virgin Mary lies and attacked a bishop and two priests.[20]
In March 2023, police arrested two Jewish teenagers on suspicion of setting fire to the prayer books of the Women of the Wall, a reform-oriented group of Jewish women who want to perform acts of worship at the Western Wall that according to tradition are reserved to men.[21]
In April 2023, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, warned that Israel’s far-right government has made life worse for Christians, declaring: “The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new. These people feel they are protected … that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”[22] In July 2023, the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, condemned the growing attacks against Christians stating: “I utterly condemn violence, in all its forms, directed by a small and extreme group, towards the holy places of the Christian faith, and against Christian clergy in Israel”.[23] In October, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, and the Sephardic and Ashkenazi chief rabbis also condemned attacks against Christians. The rabbis’ comments came after a settler who served as a spokesperson for a Member of the Knesset of the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party said on social media that spitting near Christian clergy or churches is an age-old Jewish custom that is even supported in Jewish law.[24]
In April 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that there should be an end to the practice mandating that non-Jewish children being adopted in Israel must convert to Judaism in an Orthodox manner and only be raised by Orthodox Jewish parents.[25]
In April 2023, Israeli police killed 26-year-old Mohammad Khaled al-Osaibi near the entrance of al-Aqsa-Mosque in Jerusalem. He had just finished medical school. According to the police, he tried to grab a weapon from an officer. International media reported that according to eyewitnesses he tried to prevent police from assaulting a Palestinian woman.[26]
In April 2023, Israeli police detained a man who planned to perform a Passover sacrifice at the Al-Aqsa-mosque compound at the beginning of Ramadan.[27] The same day, the Israel Minister of Police, Itamar Ben Gvir, encouraged Jews to visit the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) for Passover but to refrain from the ritual animal sacrifices for the Jewish Holiday.[28] Three days later, police clashed with Palestinians at the Haram al-Sharif just hours after the arrest and removal of more than 350 people in a police raid at the compound. The police claimed that youngsters had brought fireworks and stones into the compound and tried to barricade themselves in. The Muslim administration of the sanctuary Waqf said that police entered before prayers were over. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, was quoted as saying: “Israel’s raid into Al-Aqsa mosque, its assault on worshippers, is a slap to recent U.S. efforts which tried to create calm and stability during the month of Ramadan.”[29] On 12 April, Israel decided to ban visits from non-Muslims to the Haram al-Sharif until the end of Ramadan to calm the situation.[30]
In May 2023, as in previous years, Jewish nationalists marched through Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day chanting anti-Arab and anti-Muslim slogans like “Death to Arabs,” “Mohammed is Dead” and “May Your Village Burn”.[31]
In June 2023, a Likud Member of the Knesset proposed a plan to divide the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) between Jews and Muslims. Amit Halevi stated: “We will take the northern end and pray there. The entire mountain is sacred to us, and the Dome of the Rock is the place on which the Temple stood. This should be our guideline”.[32]
In June 2023, Jerusalem’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, apologised to Evangelical Christians. Their prayer meeting at the Western Wall was disturbed by religious Jews led by a Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Arieh King, who chanted “missionaries go home”. “We were sorry to hear from non-Jewish clerics that a number of young Jews and some who pretend to be G-d-fearing, persecute them with curses, blasphemies and more, as they walk the streets of the city,” the rabbi wrote.[33] A similar incident occurred later in the month, when Jewish extremists attempted to disrupt a gathering of Messianic Jews in Jerusalem.[34]
In June 2023, a conference dealing with spitting attacks against Christians in Jerusalem had to change venue following pressure from municipal authorities. According to the national newspaper Haaretz, aides of Jerusalem’s mayor threatened to fire the CEO of the museum if the conference, which the mayor called “antisemitic”, went ahead there.[35]
In July 2023, the Benedictine Abbot Nikodemus Schnabel of Jerusalem’s Dormition Abbey was told by an official to hide his cross while visiting the Western Wall with a German government minister. Later the organisation managing the site apologised for the distress but still defended the request.[36]
In July 2023, the Israeli Minister of Police, Itamar Ben Gvir, visited the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) for the third time since he assumed office at the end of 2022. His visit during the Jewish holiday Tisha B’Av drew rebukes from Jordan, the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia and the United States.[37] Earlier Yitzhak Yosef, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, had accused Ben Gvir of “sinning and causing others to sin” by visiting the Temple Mount. Ben Gvir responded that he was acting in accordance with the position of his rabbis, who believed that visiting the Temple Mount was a mitzvah (commandment).[38]
In August 2023, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land reported an attack on the Archangel Gabriel Monastery in Lower Galilee, with stones being thrown at the church.[39]
In August 2023, a metal fence was installed to protect the Catholic Stella Maris monastery in Haifa from intrusion by Jewish radicals. Followers of Rabbi Eliezer Berland, leader of a Jewish sect, had been entering the monastery compound to pray, claiming that it was a Jewish Holy site where the prophet Elisha was buried.[40] The Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, condemned the intrusion during a visit in August 2023 aimed at calming the distressed Christian population. The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, David Lau, wrote a letter to the monastery’s superior to condemn the acts stating, “it is an obligation for all human beings to respect each other”.[41]
In August 2023, as in the previous year, thousands of Orthodox Christian pilgrims were prevented by the authorities from celebrating the Feast of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor despite permits having been granted. According to the authorities, the fire-safety plan presented to them was inadequate. The local Christian community protested the decision.[42]
In September 2023, a video appeared showing young Jewish men treading on Muslim gravestones at Bab al-Rahmeh cemetery, adjacent to the Old City walls of Jerusalem. The Muslim administration of the site condemned the act of desecration.[43]
In October 2023, the Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza that left about 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians. Two hundred and fifty-one people, amongst them children, were taken hostage. As of June 2025, 55 hostages remain in captivity, although Israeli authorities believe that 35 of these have died.[44] After the Hamas attack, the authorities limited the entry of Muslim worshippers to the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount). “Restrictions lasting for months on end are unprecedented,” wrote the Israeli NGO Ir Amim. “On previous occasions when Israel imposed restrictions on Muslims entering the Mount, this did not last for more than a few days at a time.”[45] After the Hamas attack there were also reports of assaults by Jews on Arab workers, and in November 2023, Israel’s leading rabbis condemned these as contradicting the Torah.[46]
In 2024, the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue recorded 111 incidents directed against Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem. These included verbal harassment, physical assaults on clergy and vandalism. Thirty-five of the incidents explicitly targeted religious properties such as churches and monasteries. The majority of the alleged perpetrators were identified as young ultra-Orthodox Jewish men affiliated with religious nationalist movements.[47]
In April 2024, as in the year before, police restricted access of Christian faithful to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for the Orthodox ceremony of the Holy Fire. The authorities cited security concerns.[48]
In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that ultra-Orthodox Jewish men should be drafted into military service.[49]
In July 2024, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, David Lau, claimed that Christian missionaries from Ethiopia were coming to Israel in an attempt to convert Ethiopian Jews. In a letter to the Aliyah Ministry, he called for an end to Israeli immigration programs for Ethiopia stating it was “time to treat applicants from Ethiopia the same as anyone who applies from anywhere else in the world”.[50]
In October 2024, the Defence Ministry told the family of Staff Sergeant David Bogdanovskyi, a 19-year-old Christian killed in Gaza the previous December while serving in the Israel Defence Forces, to remove the cross from his headstone at Haifa’s military cemetery or face having his body reburied outside the cemetery.[51]
In January 2025, the radical Jewish settler Ariel Danino was banned from the West Bank for six months by the Israel Defence Forces. The order was given just a short while after a previous one had expired.[52] In 2023, he had been kept in administrative detention for potentially fomenting violence in the West Bank after a failed appeal to the Supreme Court.[53]
In February 2025, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem backed the Armenian Patriarchate in the face of threatened confiscation of Church property due to tax debts.[54] The Heads of Churches argued that the municipality of Jerusalem had not respected due process and signed a joint statement declaring: “Particularly alarming is the municipality’s attempt to enforce a debt determination without judicial scrutiny, and in defiance of the governmental committee established to negotiate such matters in good faith. This reckless move jeopardises the Orthodox Armenian Patriarchate and sets a perilous precedent that could imperil Christian institutions throughout the Holy Land.”[55]
Prospects for religious freedom
Despite its self-definition as a Jewish state, Israel largely respects the individual religious freedom of non-Jews on the legal level. On the social level, though, there has been a decline in respect for the religious freedom of non-Jews. In its 2023 annual report on attacks on Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem, the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue stated that the year 2023 witnessed a worrying increase in physical assaults on Christians and their holy places. The organisation counted seven cases of verbal harassment and four disturbances during liturgy or gatherings. In addition, it reported seven violent attacks and roughly 30 cases of spitting directed against Christians. In total it documented more than 30 cases of attacks on Church properties, including recurrent disturbances such as attempted trespassing, stone-throwing, and other incidents targeting specific properties.[56] Despite strong condemnation of these acts by Israeli officials, Christians have reported police apathy. However, attempts by the Jewish Orthodox establishment to promote moderation have been encouraging.
With the attack of Hamas on Israel in October 2023, the rift between Jews and Arab Muslims in Israel has further widened. In general, the situation of religious freedom in Israel has worsened during the period under review, with no prospects that the divisive social, political and religious context in Israel will fundamentally change anytime soon.
Israel