From the Moabite Ruth to Norly the Filipino: Intermarriage and Conversion in the Jewish Nation State

Abstract

In Israel, unlike in other countries, the vast majority of Jews marry other Jews. Interreligious marriages are not common, comprising about 5 percent of all marriages (The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute 2006: 11). Most interreligious families in Israel are those in which both spouses are immigrants from the former Soviet Union.’ However, some of them are comprised of a native Jewish-Israeli and a non-Jewish immigrant, and thus are international, intercultural, and sometimes interracial, as well as interreligious families.² This article focuses on the latter. Through these families’ experiences, and the sociolegal regime in which they are shaped, I shall discuss the relations between gender, religion, and citizenship in the country that defines itself as the Jewish nation state.³

The research reported in this article was inspired by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute discussion group on gender, religion, and politics. I am grateful to Professor Hanna Herzog and the other members of the group. I would also like to thank the couples interviewed for the study for allowing me to learn about their lives and the Colton Foundation for its generous research grant. Special thanks to Oded Feller, Reut Michaeli, David Bass, Asher Maoz, Zvi Triger, Yaron Kapitulnik, Asaf Weitzen, and Tamar Barkay for their assistance and insightful comments on earlier drafts. The responsibility for the content of the paper is, of course, mine alone. Parts of the findings reported here were first published in Israel Studies 14(2).