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JERUSALEM — Gilat Shilo grew up in Haifa in what she describes as a "very, very secular house."

Holidays were celebrated through food — "gefilte fish on Rosh Hashanah" and "milchik on Shavuot."

They "never went to synagogue except on Yom Kippur, 10 minutes before the shofar, to show off the well-dressed kids."

Today, Shilo teaches Bible studies in a secular Jerusalem public high school and maintains, with her husband, what she calls a secular household. For the sake of their two young children, however, they live in a neighborhood with a Tali school, part of a network founded by the Conservative, or Masorti ("traditional"), movement.

The Shilos thought a Tali institution, part of the public school system but now affiliated with both Masorti and Reform Judaism, would expose their kids to Judaism without forcing them "to do things we can't do."

Now their home has become more traditional, as the school encourages family-oriented holiday celebrations. Their second-grade daughter "learns and comes home and teaches us" about observance, Shilo says.

She and her secular friends believe that if there were no alternative to Orthodox Judaism such as the Masorti movement, "there [would] be nothing for our children."

Her openness to non-Orthodox Judaism may reflect a new trend as more and more non-Orthodox Israelis — some 85 percent — talk of a search for Jewish meaning.

But she cannot be called typical.

Many Israelis at all levels of observance are unfamiliar or even hostile to non-Orthodox movements, often describing them as irrelevant or even insidious to Israeli culture.

Some in the secular camp dismiss them as synagogue-based North American imports. Even though they themselves are not religious, they say the only true Judaism is Orthodoxy.

Reform and Conservative boosters feel they suffer a distinct disadvantage under the state-sanctioned Orthodox monopoly on religious life. But in recent years that monopoly, long termed the "status quo," has been eroded by a series of Supreme Court decisions that have delighted Reform and Conservative sympathizers and alarmed the Orthodox establishment.

The May elections further polarized the Orthodox and non-Orthodox. They consolidated the power of religious parties, which secured an unprecedented 23 seats in the Knesset and vowed to reverse any legal gains made by non-Orthodox movements.

The latest eruption came in August when religious newspapers assailed the judicial activism of Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak, calling him "a new dictator" and a "dangerous enemy."

For many non-Orthodox Jews, the elections were a wake-up call. Some proclaimed the start of a cultural war they believe will trigger a broad search for Jewish meaning and defense of religious freedom.

But the number of Reform and Conservative adherents and their congregations is paltry. And it is uncertain whether the movements can capitalize on the new sense of urgency to counter exclusive Orthodox power.

Ruth Calderon Ben-Shahar believes the prospect of intensified Orthodox power has jolted Israelis. But she does not believe the alternative necessarily rests with Reform or Conservative Judaism.

"Our community needs to find its own ways," she says.

The elections "put the non-dati [non-Orthodox] community in a corner where it can no longer leave Judaism and Jewish culture to the Orthodox to decide," she adds.

Calderon Ben-Shahar, who calls herself "not unreligious but not affiliated," founded Elul, a Jewish studies center for religious and secular Jews. She is building a college for Hebrew cultural studies and earning a doctorate in Talmud. "You need a knowledge base to fight a cultural war," she says.

Israelis "have adjusted repeatedly to things" decided by the Orthodox that are "far away from their lives and values, and now it's coming to a red line," she contends.

Others reflect an antipathy to the Reform movement, a common view in Israel. "The Reform are Jews but they don't act according to the Torah," says taxi driver Shalom Biton, a member of the Orthodox National Religious Party.

"They do what's comfortable for them. They desecrate the Sabbath. It's not religion."

Meir Azari, Tel Aviv's only Reform rabbi, agrees that reducing religion in Israel to "black-and-white" extremes stems from ignorance.

"There is a need in Israel for modern Judaism but there is a lack of information and knowledge and prejudice because of lack of understanding," he says.

The problem reflects a failure of commitment by North American Reform and Conservative leaders, he adds. They "didn't invest in Israel the heart and the money needed to build the movements."

Azari is overwhelmed with requests for bar mitzvahs and weddings. But most of even the most secular Israeli Jews seek Orthodox ceremonies when it comes to life-cycle events.

One is Nava Eisin, who runs the Archives of Jewish Education at Tel Aviv University.

Eisin, who describes herself as secular, chose her grandfather's Orthodox synagogue when it came time for her son's bar mitzvah.

She did this "for the sake of continuity," and to show that her son "belongs to a nation.

"It goes without saying that I'm for pluralism and that everyone should be free to exercise his feelings according to what's good for him and his family."

But that does not make Eisin a subscriber to Reform or Conservative Judaism or synagogues.

For one thing, she is impatient with Reform Judaism's requirement of a year of Jewish learning prior to a bar mitzvah, and its push for families to attend synagogue every Shabbat in that year.

"They noodje you," she says, noting that in the Orthodox synagogue her son "learned his parashah [weekly Torah portion]; we paid the money and that was that."

Aharon Yadlin, a secular sabra and former education minister who helped launch the Tali schools, believes strongly in pluralism and that the Reform and Conservative movements "may help us in some way."

But he is convinced Israelis will finally fashion their own stream of Judaism combining "continuity and innovation."

Yadlin is based at Beit Yatziv, a Beersheva center where teachers learn the new Jewish studies curriculum recommended by the Shenhar Commission.

That government commission was appointed in 1991 to remedy widespread ignorance of Jewish culture and heritage, seen as a threat to the state's Jewish identity.

In an aid to non-Orthodox movements, the panel urged secular public schools to provide a more intensive Jewish studies curriculum, including the study of diverse Jewish thought and tradition, including non-Orthodox streams. But it is now in jeopardy, due to budget cuts and the new government's more Orthodox bent.

Meanwhile, like many secular Israelis, Yadlin feels the Reform and Conservative emphasis on the synagogue "is a problem, because the majority of Israeli society [doesn't] go to synagogue every Shabbat.

"To the average Israeli, the religious aspect of Judaism is not dominant," he says. "People, state and Hebrew are the elements."

Rabbi Ehud Bandel, however, strongly believes the movements' message would resonate for Israelis if it could be heard.

The first sabra ordained in Israel as a Conservative rabbi and a former spokesman for the Masorti movement, Bandel tries to reach out to couples when they come to him seeking a Conservative wedding.

But the non-Orthodox Jewish education of these couples and others is an uphill battle.

"The moment it is not officially recognized, it can't compete," Bandel says of Masorti Judaism. Because of its illegitimate status, "it never had a real chance to bring its message to the people."

Non-Orthodox rabbis may perform weddings, but such unions are not legally recognized. The couples usually leave the country for civil ceremonies, which are then recognized by the state of Israel.

Like Azari, modern Orthodox Rabbi David Hartman lays the blame for the movements' fledgling status on their leaders in North America.

He calls them "deeply guilty for the Orthodox hegemony in Israel" because they did not understand the importance of building a cultural base there, while the Orthodox did.

Conservative and Reform leaders failed to "recognize the enormous power Israel would have on the future of Jewish life" and they are now facing the consequences, says Hartman, director of the Shalom Hartman Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies.

For his part, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, executive director of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America, acknowledges that his movement's prestate anti-Zionism contributed to years of inattention to community-building in Israel.

But, he says, that ended in 1973, when the institutional headquarters of Reform Judaism — the World Union for Progressive Judaism — moved to Israel. Since then, it has spawned a host of institutions, including the Religious Action Center, which spearheads the legal fight against the Orthodox monopoly.

In the meantime, according to Hartman, Orthodoxy in Israel views Conservative and Reform Judaism as "a distortion of Judaism, as a dangerous accommodation to modernity" — despite the fact that "non-Orthodox Judaism may have a serious contribution to make."

Hartman believes it is dishonest to argue that Conservative and Reform traditions are inauthentic because their roots lie outside Israel.

"There is no authentic Israeli tradition. Israelis are looking for their tradition," he says.