Ted Sallis: There has been a lot of talk about the “high” intermarriage rate (~ 50%) of American Jews and how this “proves” a willingness to assimilate. However, in Separation and Its Discontents, Dr. Kevin MacDonald analyzed the data and concluded that the 50% rate was likely an over-estimate, at least for first marriages (i.e., those most likely to lead to family formation), and because of undercounting conservative and orthodox Jews. In addition, even if we accept a 50% rate, I previously commented on other forums that such a rate is actually indicative of a resistance to assimilation, not a tendency toward it. That is because not only do virtually all white gentile ethnic groups have an intermarriage rate greater than 50% (as the work of Alba has shown), but proportion of the population needs to be figured in. The larger a group, the greater the probability, and possibility, of finding a mate of the same ethnic (or religious) background; the smaller the group, the greater the chance of mating with someone different – that is, if the people in question have no innate resistance to assimilatory intermarriage. Given that Jews make up a very small percent of the American population, the Jewish intermarriage rate in the absence of anti-assimilation pressures should be much higher than 50%, in fact at least 80%.
An excerpt from a relevant article, emphasis added:
Individuals that make up ethnic groups may influence the group’s rate of assimilation. While not necessarily providing the ultimate explanation for variations in assimilation between ancestry groups, ethnic capital plays a vital mediating role in the transmission of ethnicity. Not only is ethnic capital an outcome, as is implicit in the assimilation literature, but it plays a role in ethnic choice, as individuals with greater ethnic capital will be more likely to retain ethnic identification and invest in their children’s ethnic capital, a subject that has received little attention in the literature. The lack of an explicit concept of ethnic capital has contributed to the focus on group-level, structural analyses of assimilation rather than at the level of the individual….
While the concept of ethnic capital has been shown to incorporate existing theories, its utility depends on its ability to expand theoretical and empirical knowledge about ethnicity. To demonstrate the usefulness of an ethnic capital approach to assimilation, we examine the causes of intermarriage, a key product of and contributor to assimilation among American Jews. The Jewish intermarriage rate of about 50 percent is extremely low, given environmental odds of intermarriage of 98 percent. This compares with ethnic intermarriage rates of 80 percent for U.S.-born whites (Alba 2000:218-220) and religious intermarriage rates of 38 percent for Catholics and 65 percent for moderate Protestants (Sherkat 2004), each of which would be expected to have far lower intermarriage rates than Jews given the greater size of the groups. American Jewry may represent the outer limits of resisting assimilation for white ethnic groups in the United States.
Even though the intermarriage rates for Catholics and Protestants, when adjusted for population, demonstrate a far greater willingness to “mate with the other” than the Jewish rate, those religious comparisons are not reasonable; the correct comparison should be to the ethnic intermarriage rates. After all, what does Catholic or Protestant intra-religious marriage really mean? A Catholic marrying a Catholic could be an Irish ancestry person marrying another Irish, or an Italian or a Pole. Or, it could very well mean the Irish person marrying a mestizo Mexican, mulatto Puerto Rican/Dominican or an Asiatic Filipino. Likewise, a Swedish ancestry Protestant can “marry within the faith” with a Korean or a Negro. On the other hand, the vast majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi and a sizable fraction of the small non-Ashkenazi minority is still Caucasian Sephardic or “Oriental” (e.g., Iraqi, Iranian, etc.) Jews.
Therefore, comparing Christian vs. Jewish intermarriage is like comparing apples and oranges, and makes the Jewish resistance to intermarriage less extreme than it really is. Given the strong ethnic/racial component to Jewish identity, the real comparison is the white gentile intermarriage rate of 80 percent. Even with a Jewish rate of 50% — likely an overestimation — that’s almost two-fold lower than what is should be.
Facing the Future as a Minority
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Even if the Jewish outmarriage rate is 50% that is still indicative of a resistance to assimilation. Dr. Alba’s intermarriage data for white gentile ethnic groups was combined with census data for ethnic group percentages. Plotting rates of intermarriage (to someone of completely different ethnicity) of white gentile groups vs. percent of US population yields a trendline formula of:
Y = -2.4172x + 87.895
If the Irish are 10.8% of the US population, they would be expected to have an outmarriage rate of 61.9%. The measured rate, by Alba = 64.9%. That’s a good match and probably within statistical error of the predicted.
Jews? If Jews are 3% of the population, their predicted outmarriage rate would be 80.7% – a figure which can be compared to what is above, and which is obviously representative of a real, and wide, difference between predicted and actual.
In addition, I’ll reproduce some relevant numbers from Alba’s data. These numbers measure the percentages of marriage to spouses that are: fully of the same ancestry, partially of the same ancestry, and not of the same ancestry at all. Ethnic groups are ordered by size, with Germans being the largest of the ethnic groups in the census, Poles being the smallest, which can assist in estimating effects of group size on the percentages (chances of finding same/different spouses).
German: 22.6, 25.6, 51.8
Irish: 12.7, 22.4, 64.9
English: 17.1, 20.4, 61.9
Italian: 15.0, 11.7, 73.3
French: 12.1, 10.0, 77.9
Scots/Scots-Irish: 7.0, 10.8, 82.1
Polish: 7.6, 8.3, 84.1
The trendline above was based upon this intermarriage data (the last set of numbers for each ethnicity) plotted against demographic data on the percentage of each group of America’s population.
Note that these data are from the 1990s and the intermarriage rates for white gentiles are undoubtedly higher today. Combining the last two numbers for each population would yield ~80% outmarriage for white gentiles.
Having worked in Hollywood for years – well before I became aware (and also having grown up in Los Angeles) I’d like to add a couple of observations.
Jews admit to having the highest divorce rate among all “religions” – 50%. I have no doubt the rate is higher, much higher. What I’ve noticed in my dealings with these people, in the entertainment industry, is that literally 100% of them go through divorce. It’s the way they ‘structure’ their marriages that’s interesting. I noticed years ago that these people, specifically the men, would marry a Jewish woman, for their “first time around”. They would have their Jewish children. Once they were divorced, the second wife would be non-Jewish over half the time. This isn’t anything isolated, it’s “industry wide” and not a few of us non-Jewish interlopers have noticed this. I could name several big name producers who would run wild with the “shiksa” starlets, would chase attractive non-Jewish women all over, keep several girlfriends (all gentiles) on a string, and then go and marry a fellow Jew, sometimes all of a sudden, to have kids. And in many cases the wives are actually unattractive in comparison to the girlfriends and whatever, but the wives are Jewish. Just my two cents on this. I highly doubt the 50% intermarriage rate claimed by Jews overall. I would suspect this is simply a story told to the rubes whom they think might be waking up. Something to allay any concerns some might have over a group that is cohesive and hypocritical to the extreme. On that note, I think one should also take the claims of Jews being a mere 2% – 3% of the US population with a grain of salt. If you look at their numbers in certain occupations, schools, areas in the US, the 3% figure is low. And that 2% – 3% number comes from them, just like the 50% intermarriage number. I guess I could joke about an occupying army, but it’s no joke. I and others have written to a few websites stating that Whites should begin raising their children by inculcating the idea that we, Whites, are the outsiders. That we need to stick together, to be cohesive. To keep in mind that “outsiders” might be working against us, even when presenting a smiling face. The sites usually don’t allow this to posted, AMREN being most notable in this respect.
I note that at another forum, “The Undiscovered Jew” has some complaints, accompanied by the usual ethnic-genetic mendacity.
1. The 50% rate is well established.
It’s not. If you eliminate some of the sources of inflation – for example, counting individuals of part-Jewish ancestry – the rate is more likely 38%, and at most 43%
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/12390/new-study-debunks-52-percent-intermarriage-rate/
And, even if the rate is 50%, the analysis of MacDonald – echoed by the anecdotal evidence of Jason – suggests that in first marriages resulting in family formation, the intermarriage rate is less than 50%
All told, it is unlikely in the extreme that full Jews in their first marriage are outmarrying at a 50% rate
2. The 50% rate is evidence of a lack of Jewish ethnocentrism
Even if the 50% rate is correct, the entire point of this post, as well as the linked article (which is ignored by those with an ethnic agenda), is that for a group at 2-3% of the population, 50% intermarriage is low
3. But white Americans marry whites 97% of the time, and yet Jews outmarry 50% of the time…
This is an argument I encounter every so often – comparing the racial intermarriage rate of white gentiles, with the total outmarriage rate of Jews – even though most Jewish intermarriage is with white gentiles
And I though that “Jews are white?” You can’t have it both ways. If Jews are “white,” then their intermarriage rate needs to be compared to ethnic intermarriage rates of white gentiles – which is ~ 80%, not 3%.
On the other hand, if you want to equate Jewish-white gentile intermarrriage with white-black or white-Asian intermarriage, then this implies that Jewish identity is so different from white gentiles that it approaches the black/Asian difference – and thus, Jews cannot be “white.”
It’s clear though that the appropriate measure is the ethnic intermarrriage rate. Even if one supposes that Jews are distinct from white gentiles, the difference really is not that of whites-blacks, whites-Asians, of course. Therefore, unless the “50% Jewish outmarriage rate” is mostly with blacks, Asians, etc. do not compare to the white racial rate.
4. Surveys say…
I have a problem with sites/blogs – as well as comments – which rely predominantly on “survey” data, or on “social science” questionaires.
How people answer isn’t necessarily a reflection of how they actually behave. And, the way the questions are phrased yield varied answers.
It’s more telling that a people are at the forefront of pushing integration and miscegenation, while resisting assimilation themselves.
With respect to claims that “where is the proof that Jews are highly ethnocentric” – I cannot reproduce here the ~ 1000 pages of MacDonald’s trilogy discussing that issue.
If he’d like to comment here with some data, that would be welcome.
First, “The Undiscovered Jew says that Jews are just another type of ethnic white:
“We aren’t excissevely (sic) compared to other whites:”
“We are in line with other ethnic whites:”
“The ethnocentrism of Jews (which appears to be in line with other white ethnic groups”
Then he compares Jewish intermarriage that is almost always with white gentiles (inter-ethnic, by his standards) with white RACIAL intermarriage:
“97% of white Americans are married to white Americans while Jews outmarry at a rate of 50%.”
The amount of deception/self-deception here is incredible, and will be familiar to anyone who has read “Separation and Its Discontents”
I am also amused by commentators comparing Jewish ethnocentrism with that of “Italian-Americans,” citing the existence of “Italian-American organizations.”
Such organizations – which unlike those of a certain other group do not influence US domestic or foreign policy, promote miscegenation, shill for “hate crime/speech laws,” or push a far-left political agenda – are populated by individuals who fall into one of the following four categories:
1. Whining crybabies complaining about the mafia in TV and movies, despite the objective existence of the mafia as a factor in US crime for over the last ~ 100 years
2. Dumb guidos doing bad Joe-Pesci-Goodfellas impersonations
3. Fat slobs comparing “grandma’s lasagna recipes”
4. Talking about sports, with frequent exclamations of “forget about it”
…before going home to their non-”Italian American” girlfriends/wives (note intermarriage rate from Alba data)
Stupid, yes, but not quite at the level of Elliot Abrams, shilling for a foreign nation, and sending children to that nation so they can better learn how to be ethnic nationalist and resist assimilation. Nor quite at the level of the ADL either.
And, last I heard, shifting to the political “right,” neither Borzellieri nor Calabro ever went to an Amren conference to propose a multiracial “white separatist state” or wrote essays to Amren urging whites to surrender to the “racial status quo” and to grovel to minorities so as to not “make the minorities angry.” Insofar as I know, Taylor never had to admonish Borzellieri or Calabro for spreading memes that were “defeatist and suicidal.” Insofar as I know, neither Borzellieri nor Calabro ever screamed out vulgarities and stormed out of the room – or wrote obnoxious letters to Taylor demanding change – because they didn’t like the presence of certain people at Amren conferences. Insofar as I know only one “white ethnic group” has continuously caused disruptions for Amren.
Let’s take hypothetical group “X.” For the last ~ 2000 years, X has existed as a distinct minority in other people’s lands, and have been subjected to intense assimilatory pressures and – as they often tell us – extreme persecution because of their differences. However, somehow, despite this, they still exist today as a biologically and culturally distinct group, and are still resisting the extreme assimilatory pressures of America, so that an academic study can conclude that this group:
“…may represent the outer limits of resisting assimilation for white ethnic groups in the United States. ”
And they are not highly ethnocentric? This all “just happened?”
I think the comments by Jason Bates on Jewish maarriage in Hollywood are spot on. In addition to undercounting the Orthodox, this is the number one reason why Jewish intermarriage rates are deceptive. It would be nice to see a quantitative study of the phenomenon.
Thank you Dr. McDonald. I know that my observations are “anecdotal” but myself and many others have noticed the things I’ve mentioned – and this includes people who work with Jews in different “businesses”. I should add that as the country, the economy, have worsened, more of my outgroup co-workers have begun remarking on things, noticing things, just in general waking up to a lot of what’s going on. I think that it’s inevitable that something has to crack. It remains to be seen if whites can push back or organize. It’s becoming obvious that the Jews and non-whites are feeling very confident, almost brazen in the way these peoples are behaving. It’s almost like some kind of non-verbal communication is at work that is beyond all the propaganda that surrounds us. I would go on, but it would be a very long post. Maybe I should write my own column, lol.
BTW – I should have written “Dr. Mac Donald”, sorry about the typo. Simply typing too fast.