page_title: Religion in Catalonia
section_title: Judaism
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in Catalonia / Religions / Judaism
caption_attribution_description: Català: Antiga sinagoga jueva (Tortosa) This is a photo of a building indexed in the Catalan heritage register as Bé Cultural d'Interès Local (BCIL) under the reference IPA-13612.
context_page_description: Religion in Catalonia is diversified. Historically, virtually all the population was Christian, specifically Catholic, but since the 1980 there has been a trend of decline of Christianity and parallel growth of irreligion and other religions. The secularisation of Catalan culture started in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but conscious disaffiliation from Catholicism has also been driven since the 1980s by the religious authorities' association with Francoist Spain. According to the most recent study sponsored by the government of Catalonia, as of 2016, 61.9% of the Catalans identify as Christians, up from 56.5% in 2014, of whom 58.0% Catholics, 3.0% Protestants and Evangelicals, 0.9% Orthodox Christians and 0.6% Jehovah's Witnesses. At the same time, 16.0% of the population identify as atheists, 11.9% as agnostics, 4.8% as Muslims, 1.3% as Buddhists, and a further 2.4% as being of other religions.
context_section_description: Jews in Catalonia are about 15,000 as of 2014, and there are four synagogues in the country. Not all Jews are followers of the Jewish religion. Indeed, 80% of Jews in Catalonia are either atheist, agnostic or practice other religions while only 20% are practice Judaism. The Israelitic Community of Barcelona (Comunitat Israelita de Barcelona, CIB), is the oldest Jewish religious community in Catalonia, founded in 1918, and follows Orthodox Judaism. In 1992 the Jewish Community Atid of Catalonia (Comunitat Jueva Atid de Catalunya) was established as a splinter of the CIB, adopting Reform Judaism. In the early 2000s a Chabad-Lubavitch, Hasidic Orthodox, outreach centre was founded in Catalonia. In 2006 another Reform group, the Progressive Jewish Community Bet Shalom, was founded as a splinter of Atid.
  Ethnically, Jews who belong to the CIB are predominantly Sephardi, although there is a small minority of Ashkenazi as well. Members of Atid are, instead, mostly of South American origin, specifically Argentines. Endly, Bet Shalom predominantly hosts ethnic Catalan converts, and other minorities of converts without ethnic Jewish origin.
caption: Ancient synagogue in Tortosa.
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