Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

April 22, 2025

In America, Belief in the Afterlife Has Bounced Back

You don’t have to be religious to believe in heaven.

While Judaism’s theology of the death penalty relies heavily—although by no means exclusively—on doctrines of the afterlife, these doctrines have largely been minimalized in non-haredi American Judaism. Overall, however, Americans tend to believe in life after death, and surveys show that this belief has remained steady for over five decades. Ryan Burge investigates:

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