Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

American Jews and Israeli Jews may be part of the same global family, yet they are anything but identical twins.

A new Pew Research Center study of Israeli attitudes released this week provides sobering evidence that Jews in Israel hold strikingly different views on several key issues compared with their cousins in North America.

Unlike American Jews, who overwhelmingly consider themselves liberal, the study found that only 8 percent of Israeli Jews so describe themselves. That could help explain the 61 percent in Israel who believe that Jewish settlements in the West Bank make their nation more secure, as opposed to just 17 percent of American Jews who hold that view.

A majority of American Jews consider Israel both Jewish and democratic. But less than a quarter of Israeli Jews see it that way. Asked to choose, 89 percent of secular Israeli Jews say democratic values should take precedence over Jewish law, while 89 percent of ultra-Orthodox Israelis say the exact opposite. And the latter group is growing.

Even so-called secular Israelis are more traditional than secular American Jews. A vast majority keep kosher, and more and more are returning to religion.

The Pew finding that has garnered the most headlines is the disturbing 48 percent of Israeli Jews who agree that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” That figure rises to 72 percent among self-described right-wing respondents.

Granted, no Israeli government has ever proposed such a draconian policy. Similarly, no past survey has shown such an alarmingly high number holding such views, leading some experts to caution against overreacting.

Nevertheless, the results will surely unnerve American Jews, who pride themselves on their tolerance, embrace of diversity and affinity for democracy, and who wish to overlay those attitudes on Israel.

So what are we to make of all this? For one thing, Jewish solidarity may be more complicated to maintain as time goes on. Arguably, in Israel’s early days, the similarities between American Jews and Israeli Jews were more pronounced. More than six decades on, Israel’s national character has evolved. Scarred by war and terror, impacted by waves of immigration from Arab lands, Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union, and emboldened by its economic power, Israel is its own country. Its culture is not our culture.

American Jews tend to view the Jewish state through a provincial American lens, and that can lead to a disconnect. If we are to engage seriously, we must see each other for who we are, not whom we wish the other to be.