JERUSALEM (RNS) — The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and ensuing war have changed the way many young Jewish Israelis feel about their religious and spiritual lives, according to a new study by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, the study, conducted in January/February 2024, and published online Sept. 13, found that just over half of 1,278 respondents said the trauma they experienced personally or as part of the Israeli nation affected their level of religiosity and/or spirituality.
One of the unique aspects of the study — which was part of large-scale research on psychological coping, resilience and the ability to function under war conditions — was that it examined war and religion in “real time,” said Yaakov Greenwald, a Hebrew University Ph.D. student and lead researcher on the study.
Participants were more likely to say their religiosity and spirituality increased rather than decreased, the researchers noted. About 1 in 4 said they had become more religious, while 1 in 3 became more spiritual. However, “a significant minority” — 1 in 7 — turned away from or rejected religion, the researchers said, after Oct. 7.
“The Israel-Gaza war has caused mass casualties, displacement, and suffering in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon,” the researchers wrote. “The large number of casualties, the intensive exposure to rocket fire and alarms across Israel, the media exposure to the atrocities of the October 7 attack and mass internal extended displacement in northern and southern Israel can be seen as constant reminders of death and destruction. For many, exposure to the trauma of war seemed to amplify the search for comfort through religion/spirituality.”
The study surveyed students at Hebrew University, an internationally recognized university that draws students from throughout Israel and abroad. Roughly half (50.9%) of respondents identified as secular, followed by religious (27.8%), traditional (16.9%) and ultra-Orthodox (2.5%). The remaining participants did not indicate their religious category.
Already-religious participants were far more likely to experience increased religiosity during the war, while secular participants “often leaned toward spirituality over organized religion,” the study found. But some respondents experienced a crisis of faith brought on by the atrocities committed by Hamas or due to other aspects of the war — a phenomenon rarely, if ever, studied, the researchers wrote.
“Direct exposure to war resulted in greater increases in religiosity and spirituality, but even in religious groups, some became less religious or spiritual,” Greenwald said. “Not everyone reacts the same way.”
The majority of the respondents (65%) were undergraduate students whose median age was 27, reflecting the fact that most Israelis pursue higher education later than students in other countries due to first completing their mandatory military service.
Participants were also asked more than 20 questions related to their direct or indirect exposure to the war, including whether they were injured in a violent attack or whether relatives, friends or acquaintances had been injured or killed; whether their home or a home close to theirs was hit by rockets or missiles; and whether they or someone they are close to is serving in the military in northern Israel, which was at the time of the survey being targeted by Hezbollah in Lebanon or Gaza during the first few months of the war.
One-fifth (20.6%) of participants reported that a friend had been injured or killed during the first three and a half months of the war, Greenwald told RNS.
Greenwald also noted that in Israel, “a ‘secular’ lifestyle isn’t necessarily devoid of religion.”
“Many ‘secular’ people believe in God and practice religion to some degree, depending on their religious background,” he said. Some tend toward spirituality, which could mean spending time in nature or in private reflection, meditating or praying, rather than practicing organized religion in a synagogue.
Younger Israelis appear to be the demographic most impacted by the two-year war, both directly and indirectly, Greenwald added. Thousands of young people attended the Nova music festival infiltrated by Hamas on Oct. 7, while most active-duty soldiers are in their late teens or early- to mid-20s. Most reservists called up for combat duty are in their 20s and 30s, although some are older.
Although the researchers had hoped to include Arab students in the study, “we were largely unsuccessful,” Greenwald said. “It was a very complicated time and there was a lot of distrust, but I can only speculate.”
Generally, studies on religion are conducted after a war is over. By examining the religion/war dynamic soon after the Hamas attack, “we were able to determine that changes happened quickly, at the beginning of the war,” Greenwald said. Whether participants stick with their faith-based changes or revert to their pre-war patterns will likely be the subject of future research, he said.
“It’s possible that religion and spirituality have served a psychological need, but maybe, as the war continued, the need for such a coping mechanism wasn’t still necessary,” he said. “This needs more careful examination.”
Yosef Ben-Yosef, 23, was nearing the end of his military service when the war broke out. A combat soldier, he said he barely escaped injury when a Hamas fighter fired an RPG at his tank in December 2023. A Modern Orthodox Jew at the time, he recited a special prayer, birkat hagomel, to thank God for delivering him from harm.
“After surviving the attack, I gradually became more religiously observant,” he said. “I started to wear tzizit (ritual fringes) every day, and even many of the secular soldiers in my squad started to do the same. I made sure to pray three times a day whenever possible.”
While he had long planned to travel to the Far East after completing military service a year ago, he instead enrolled in a yeshiva in Jerusalem.
“The path feels right,” he said.
Ella Issacharoff, a 29-year-old social entrepreneur who lives in Jerusalem, said while the massacre shook her concept of God, it prompted her to launch New Way, an organization focused on community bridge-building.
“After October 7th, I felt much less spiritual,” Issacharoff said. “I couldn’t believe in the idea of God when I saw the horrors — when Hamas terrorists raped women and murdered babies. It felt impossible to reconcile that with faith.”
“But,” she added, “as an Israeli citizen, I also discovered a different kind of strength — the unity of people, the resilience of community. While I do not practice religion, my values are deeply shaped by our culture and history. I believe in the strength of community, in doing what is right for society, and in building a future guided by responsibility, justice and shared humanity.”