Hiloni

Hiloni (חִלּוֹנִי), plural hilonim (חִלּוֹנִים; "secular"), is a in Israel, designating the least religious segment among the Jewish public. The other three subgroups on the scale of Jewish-Israeli religiosity are the masortim, "traditional"; datiim, "religious"; and haredim, "ultra-religious" ("ultra-Orthodox"). In the 2018 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics' survey, 43.2% of Jews identified as hiloni. In the Israeli parlance, hiloni is used to identify Jews who observe fewer traditional practices than the other, more religious, Jewish subgroups (apart from that, the term may also be used as a derogatory epithet by observant Jews, or to be associated with Jewish secularism). It does not mean, that the hiloni Israelis are without other forms of spirituality. Between 2002 and 2018, among Jewish adult respondents to ICBS polls, self-identified hilonim numbered between a maximum of 45% in 2005 and a minimum of 41.4% in 2009. In 2018, the figure was 43.2%. Though hiloni literally means "secular", many scholars noted it is problematic in translation. Professor Yoav Peled preferred to render it as "nonobservant." Kenneth D. Wald and Samuel Shye commented that: It is essential to recall that secularity in Israel is defined in reaction to the extremely stringent demands of Orthodox Judaism and does not necessarily entail a conscious rejection of Jewish religious identity or even necessarily connote indifference. Although their standard of observance is low by Orthodox standards, many of the ostensibly secular exhibit an array of religious acts that would mark them off as fairly religious in the American context. Though the term is misleading, "secular" is the common label to identify people who do not consistently practice the ritual behavior mandated by Orthodox Judaism. The demarcation between the hiloni category and the nearest, the masorti or "traditional", is highly porous.