That’s what the headline of this Ha’aretz piece says. It goes onto explain that:
According to a Central Bureau of Statistics report published on, about 90 percent of Ethiopians – 93 percent of men and 85 percent of women – marry within their community.
Is that the result of Ethiopian Israelis “resisting” interracial marriage? It’s not clear from the information given in the piece that Ethiopian Israelis are the ones resisting:
The Center for Academic Studies found last year that most Israeli respondents were not comfortable with the prospect of one of their own children marrying an Ethiopian.
Fifty-seven percent said it would be entirely unacceptable for their daughters to marry an Ethiopian, and 39 percent said so regarding their sons.
Oh, so it turns out that many white Israelis have really racist attitudes towards Ethiopian Israelis and frown on interracial marriage. There isn’t even a corresponding survey on how Ethiopian Israelis feel–but it’s somehow clear that they are the ones “resisting” even given the prevalence of racist views on interracial marriage in Israel. (Getting a job in Israel if you’re of Ethiopian descent? Not so easy either.)
People eager to use this article to confirm their negative impressions of Israel should hold fast. Despite the fact that interracial marriage is more publicly supported in the U.S., the article claims that the rate of interracial marriage with whites is higher for Israeli blacks (10%) than for American blacks (6%). This may reflect a racial dynamic in the U.S. where expressing opposition to interracial marriage in public might be frowned upon even as those views remain privately held. People also might be less likely here to tell a pollster the truth. There’s also the nature of the question: Gallup’s version was the substantially less personal “do you support” interracial marriage, while the Israeli poll asked whether or not respondents would accept their child marrying interracially.
De-Facto social and economic segregation also obviously contribute to low rates of intermarriage with whites for black folks in the U.S. and may be the more relevant factor than outright racism (There’s also a substantial gender gap in rates of intermarriage forblack folks in the U.S., with black men far more likely than blackwomen to intermarry). I don’t have the relevant info to make the comparison with Israel and come to a definitive conclusion about why the rates are different.
— A. Serwer
