Traditional Jewish wedding. Photo: AJN file
CHANTAL ABITBOL
INTERMARRIAGE among Jews is on the up around the world -– with Australia’s rates hovering around 25 per cent, according to new research.
Professor Sergio DellaPergola, an expert on Jewish demographics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has reported a significant hike in assimilation and intermarriage since the 1930s.
At the time, he said, no country had a Jewish community experiencing a marrying-out rate of 35 per cent or higher. But today, the landscape has significantly changed.
Prof DellaPergola, whose findings were recently published in the book Jewish Intermarriage Around the World, reports a large share of world Jewry -– including France, the UK, and the main Latin American countries -– has marrying-out rates between 35-45 per cent.
Meanwhile, the United States has moved well above 50 per cent, and the Russian Federation is above 75 per cent.
Figures for Australia appear to be less drastic. Since the 1930s, Australia has experienced a steady rate of intermarriage of 24-35 per cent. The latest figures, however, indicate that figure is likely closer to 25 per cent.
Israel is virtually alone with an intermarriage rate still below 5 per cent, the academic said.
“Unquestionably, the diffusion of out-marriage across Jewish populations globally and the conflicting attitudes towards its nature and consequences constitute fundamental issues for Jewish policymaking and one of the major challenges world Jewry faces at the beginning of the 21st century,” said Prof DellaPergola.
It all comes from the family values, I guess. In Russia before perestroika, goyim didn’t want to marry Jews, and the rate of intermarriage was pretty low. Now the stigma is gone, and the level of antisemitism, although still high, is lower than what it was before, hence 75%.
Anyone suprised with the lower rate of intermarriage in Israel? Who can Jews there “intermarry”?
Jews in the United States are so assimilated, they just don’t care. They see intermarriage as an opportunity to be like “everyome else”, same as not eating kosher or working on Shabbat. If your parents/teachers never told you to do these things, it doesn’t come by itself.
I also find these statistics quoted in this article disputable; Mexico’s jewish community prides itself on having such a low intermarriage rate that the community is actually growing.
I always wonder at the ambiguity of the concern here. Is ‘marrying out’ an end or a beginning? It doesn’t have to be dissipation it could be growth.
Too often the negative is assumed. If thats the only option considered, then that is what we will get.
Professor DellaPergola’s claim that intermarriage frates in Australia have been a “steady” 25-34 per cent “since the `1930s” is not based on any evidence known to me. All the Census statistics suggest that the intermarriage rate in Australia is much lower, and declined sharply in the 1940s and 1950s with the arrival of thousands of Holocaust survivors. Since the 1950s it has always been lower in Victoria than in
New South Wales, and lower there than in the small states.
(Prof.) Bill Rubinstein, Dept. of History, University of Aberystwyth, U.K.