Comparing Jewish Orthodoxy, & the Catholic Vatican

Thank you for your response. This is an excellent answer. However, secular Israelis will eventually compare this situation to that of the Vatican at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Or, they will simply convert to other religions. I personally believe that the Orthodox are creating an environment similar to the Second Temple era which ultimately led to the development of Christianity. In fact, secular Israelis are making the same criticisms as the ones in the New Testament. I don’t think that Rabbinic Judaism will survive into the next century with that type of thinking.

The social and religious framework of Israel is a lot more complex and unlike anything mankind has ever seen, so any comparison is inevitably inaccurate. Returning and reuniting 6 million Jews from more than 100 countries, after 2,000 years of exile full of pogroms and Holocaust, is a unique phenomenon and super-complicated! The modern vibrant orthodox and yeshiva world have come back to life and statistically, are significantly much stronger than they were before the Holocaust. About half of the Israelis define themselves as traditional with another about 25% orthodox. There are not more than 20% who would call themselves secular and not traditional at all, and their percentage is getting continuously smaller (they have much less children, many are returning to tradition, and most of those who leave Israel are from this group, and conversely most olim/immigrants coming to Israel, become closer to tradition and Judaism). Statistics and the elections clearly prove this direction. These secularists would be the last ones to convert to another religion! In addition, I highly suggest coming to Israel to understand firsthand, and not rely on slanted information one gets from generally anti-religious reporters and their agenda. You will see for yourself that, to the contrary, in Israel, traditional rabbinic Judaism is growing a lot faster and stronger than secularism. In addition, any comparison between the Living Torah of traditional Judaism together with its intellectual and emotional dynamic Oral Law and renewal of modern religious-Zionism with its vibrancy felt in universities, the economy, army and politics; in comparison to the Vatican and their stagnant anachronistic religion, which will always inevitably be full of sexual scandals and intellectual shallowness, is way-off and laughably based upon gross misinformation.