Though Israeli Jewish society is highly secularized when compared to the rest of the Middle East, the importance of religion in state life leaves little room for total disengagement from it.
Religion plays a central part in national and social identity; Israelis are involuntarily registered as members of the state's fourteen recognized autonomous faith communities, which exercise control over marriage, burial and other matters.
[9] Professor Yoav Peled preferred to render Hiloni – 60% of whom believe in God, according to polls, and 25% affirm that He literally revealed the Law at Sinai – as "nonobservant".
[10] Emphasizing the superiority of practice to faith in Judaism, Israeli social scientists measure secularity and religiosity in terms of the rigour of observance, not beliefs.
Owing to the prevalence of practices like selective dietary purity or fixing a doorpost amulet, and their amalgamation into Israeli ordinary lifestyle without an overt religious connotation, many of the "totally nonobservant" actually perform not a few of these.
While some Israeli Muslims largely ignore religious commandments in their personal lives (avoiding daily prayer and not fasting on Ramadan are the main hallmarks), open disregard is virtually unheard of.