On the Faultline: Israelis of Mixed Ethnicity

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study of offspring of parents of mixed ethnicities demonstrates how persistent ethnic identities are. A case study of Israelis born into ethnically-mixed marriages between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi parents, it reveals the ambivalence expressed by respondents about their dual ethnic inheritance. While romanticizing their mixed ethnicity, respondents take issue with the dominance of one side of their family over the other. The study provides evidence of this ambivalence and advances the conclusion that ethnic conflicts cannot be solved by ethnically-mixed coupling. Rather, these families still mirror and inadvertently reproduce the ethnic gaps that they promised to eliminate.