OPINION: Belonging without believing: British Jewish identity and God

The late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a committed Arsenal fan. In 1990, he and George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury and also an Arsenal supporter, attended a match together. It didn’t go well. Together, they witnessed their team lose 6-2 to Manchester United.

The following day, a reporter impudently suggested that if the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi between them cannot bring about a win for Arsenal, surely that proves that God does not exist conclusively? But in what has become a famous retort, Rabbi Sacks replied that, on the contrary, it proves God does exist, “it’s just that He supports Manchester United.”

The existence of God is, of course, an age-old philosophical question which I am happy to leave to the clerics and philosophers. According to the great medieval Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, one of the central tenets of Judaism is belief in God, for, as he argues, without God, how can there be a moral compass? However, the issue of belief in God is of great interest to social scientists, and data help us understand more precisely how it relates to the strength of one’s Jewish identity and community attachment.

To this end, in our recent National Jewish Identity Survey, JPR asked 4,900 Jewish respondents to choose between three statements: ‘I believe in God as described in the Bible’; ‘I do not believe in God as described in the Bible, but I do believe there is some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe’; and ‘I do not believe there is any higher power or spiritual force in the universe’.

The results show that only one in three Jews believe in God, as described in the Bible.

Where does that leave Judaism? Is it inevitably on the same downward path as Christianity is in the UK?

Not necessarily.

A key indicator of the decline of organised religion in Britain is ‘bums-on-pews’ – i.e. that only people who believe in God are likely to attend church. Even if that is true, it doesn’t seem to apply to Jews. According to the data, two out of three  Jews who don’t believe in the God of the Bible attend synagogue, at least on the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Moreover, even among paid-up synagogue members, more than half (56%) do not believe in God, and nearly two in five Jewish atheists belong to a synagogue. Jews, it seems, are pretty comfortable belonging without believing.

So why do the Jewish godless bother? To begin answering this question, we presented the JPR panel members with a statement: ‘Belief in God is not central to being a good Jew’? and we asked them if they agreed or disagreed.

The results go some way towards explaining why Jews might belong without believing. A substantial seven out of ten Jews said that, in their opinion, belief in God is not central to being a good Jew. Jews who do not believe in God – the majority – believe it’s entirely consistent to be a good Jew without believing in God. Even among Jews who do believe in the God of the Bible, almost two in five say it is not central to being a good Jew.

It is difficult to imagine the same response pattern occurring among Christian respondents. The reason for that is simple: For Christians, belief in God is a fundamental aspect of Christianity, and while one could argue that is also the case for Judaism, especially when it is constructed in terms of faith, the reality is that for Jews, Judaism – the religion – is just one part of the identity system to which Jewish people adhere.

To be Jewish is to have a multi-dimensional identity incorporating traits such as culture and ethnicity, neither of which is God-dependent. While there may be numerous traits Jews say are important to being a ‘good Jew’ – such as giving to charity, upholding strong moral and ethical behaviour, marrying another Jew, or volunteering – believing in God, as described in the Bible, is not one of them.

• Dr David Graham, senior fellow researcher, Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR)