18 Friday, April 14, 1918
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Intermarriage in Israel Source of Concern
A small village in West-
ern Galilee, only recently
linked to the national water
grid and still without paved
roads and electricity, is
home to 2,500 Beduin and
Nava, a pretty, blue-eyed
blonde Ashkenazi who is
married to Yousef, a tracker
for the army.
In a rambling old apart-
ment house in Nazareth
lives the Jewish widow of a
former Arab Knesset
member. Her cousin-by-
marriage and close friend is
a left-wing American im-
migrant married to a Rakah
activist.
Down the block, in the
home of her in-laws,
Spanish-born Batsheva
lives with her husband
Saleh, a construction
worker.
According to The
Jerusalem Post, there is
at least one Jewish girl
living in most of Israel's
}nisi Mot
kinalatio
IMO* Mewl
Isnastalire
Arab villages; in Baka el
Garbiyeh there are 21. In
Acre, there are at least a
dozen mixed couples; in
Jaffa, twice that number.
There are small colonies
of Druse married to Jewish
women in both Eilat and
Beersheba. And in Tiberias
lives a Circassian soccer
star and his once Jewish,
now Moslem, wife.
None of the government
ministries knows exactly
how many Jewish Israelis
have married non-Jewish
Israelis since the estab-
lishment of the state.
The most complete statis-
tics available come from Dr.
Yosef Ginat, assistant ad-
viser on Arab affairs to the
prime minister and a lec-
turer at Haifa University.
Two years ago, for the In-
stitute for Interdisciplinary
Research of Jewish
Families, he questioned the
mayors and community
leaders of every minority
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village and Jewish-Arab
city.
Ginat discovered 500
cases: 425 Moslem men
(Arabs, Beduin,- Circas-
sians) married to Jewish
women; seven Moslem or
Christian women married
to Jewish men; 68 Druse
and Christian men married
to Jewish women.
In order to find out more
about mixed marriages in
Israel, The Jerusalem Post
talked to some 25 couples
and studied a series of in-
terviews recorded by Israel
Radio for a recent program
called "Forbidden Loves."
Most of the couples had
met informally at work or
around the neighborhood,
though one couple had been
introduced by friends, an-
other had met at a left-wing
summer camp, two had been
active in the Rakah — New
Communist Party, several
had attended university to-
gether, and several more
had served together in the
army.
_
the Druse are either in
the security forces or
work for the government.
None of the Moslem
Arabs considered them-
selves enemies of the state,
though most had voted for
Rakah as a protest against
their "status as second class
citizens." All the Druse and
Beduin supported the
Zionist parties.
Not one of the non-Jewish
women agreed to be inter-
viewed, but Dr. Ginat says
they are well educated, as
are their husbands. In
Haifa, for instance, lives a
Moslem nurse married to a
well-known surgeon.
Because there is no civil
marriage in Israel, many of
the Jewish women marry-
ing Moslems (50 percent ac-
cording to Ginat) convert to
Islam, a fairly uncompli-
cated procedure.
None of the women
converted out of religious
conviction. For most, it
was simply a way to
marry legally without
In a good number of having to leave Israel.
cases, the Jewish woman One hoped it would lead
had not known she was to greater acceptance by
dating a non-Jew until the Arab community;
after she was emotionally others did it for the sake
and physically involved. of their children.
"One day I met the man of
my dreams on the beach,"
reports one American im-
migrant. "Only later did it
become clear that Dani the
Iraqi from Haifa was really
Hani the Druse from Daliat
el Cannel."
Most of the women were
from the Oriental com-
munities (85 percent, ac-
cording to Ginat's survey),
and were high-school drop-
outs from broken or un-
happy homes.
But there were also sev-
eral new immigrants from
the West — all profession-
als, several Ashkenazi
women (mostly married to
Beduin), and several sabras
born and raised in a kibutz.
The men, mostly from
villages but also from
mixed-population cen-
ters, ranged in occupa-
tion from construction
worker to professor.
Many of the Beduin serve
in the army, and many of
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Many of those converted
said they were literally
"forced" to do so by the Reli-
gious Affairs Ministry.
Several women reported
that when they applied to
convert, although they were
over the age of 18, the
Ministry notified their par-
ents.
None of the Druse or Be-
duin who converted to
Judaism (about 50 percent
of those discovered by
Ginat) think that their par-
ents were advised. In fact,
one Druse claims that to
this day his parents don't
know he has converted.
According to Ginat,
some five to 10 percent of
all mixed couples opt for
civil marriage.
The most popular place
for this is Cyprus, where an
Israeli emigre will make all
the arrangements.
There is also the Mexican
marriage by proxy for those
who don't want to leave Is-
rael.
For approximately $900
(payable in Israeli pounds)
Tel Aviv lawyer Yosef
Ben-Menashe can produce a
Mexican wedding certifi-
cate which is recognized by
the Interior Ministry.
Most couples who chose to
maintain their separate re-
ligions, however, settled for
common law marriage.
Except for Druse-
Jewish couples, and the
marriages between Arab
women and Jewish men,
most mixed couples (75
percent according to
Ginat) settle in an Arab
village or in the Arab
neighborhoods of mixed
population centers,
close to their inlaws.
Reasons range from "my
husband is an Arab and
wants to live among his own
kind," to "we could live bet-
ter materially in the vil-
lage," to "we agreed to raise
the children as Arabs."
Few of the Jewish women,
however, all of whom
learned to speak Arabic,
like living among Arabs.
"You have to follow their
customs," complains one.
"In the evening, all the men
get together in the coffee
houses and discuss while
the women sit at home
alone. I have virtually no
friends here, no woman I
can talk to about books or
movies. Mostly I just watch
TV."
"Although I con-
verted," says another,
"they still call me "the
Jew'7
As might be expected,
Ginat's research discovered
that the number of mixed
marriages reported an-
nually decreases after a
war.
Thus, in 1964 there were
26 marriages between Jews
and non-Jews, but in 1968
only three. Similarly, in
1973 there were 15 mixed
marriages, and in 1974 only
nine.
For those who converted
to Islam, army service for
their sons does not come
into question. For those who
remained Jews, it is a prob-
lem.
One Haifa family, who
raised their children to
be neither Jews nor Ar-
bas, report that while the
older son opted out of the
army, the younger ones
decided to be drafted.
Jewish society is much
more acceptant of the
Druse-Jewish mixed mar-
riages than of others.
For one thing, the Druse
serve in the Israel Defense
Forces (some of the Druse
were actually born in Syria
and crossed into Israel in
1948 to fight with the Jews).
The families tend to live
among Ashkenazis ("Orien-
tal Jews are very intoler-
ant") and most bring their
children up as Jewish, even
in cases where the father
has not converted.
Of those Druse who
have converted, most did
so before meeting their
wives, and most are trad-
itional.
Despite the problems in-
volved in mixed marriages,
the couples interviewed in-
dicated that if they could
turn back the clock, they
would go through with their
marriages again:
But several women indi-
cated they would try to live
in the city, instead of in the
village, and one said she
would not again convert to
Islam.
Weizmann Editor
Replaces Weisgal
JERUSALEM — Barnet
Litvinoff has been ap-
pointed to succeed the late
Meyer Weisgal as editor of
the Weizmann papers.
Twelve of the projected 23
volumes have been com-
pleted. Litvinoff believes
Zionist history will be re-
written when the project is
completed because "all the
half-truths and folklore
which have gone into
Zionist history will have to
be changed."