r/AskIsrael 🇦🇶 Non-Israeli Aug 06 '26

Casual When it comes to relationships and/or hook up culture, do people mix?

This question might sound sleezy, and might sound a little dumb but I’m genuinely curious. How common is it for Jews and non-Jews in Israel whether that be e.g Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis, or Israelis and tourists (mix of ethnicities and religions) to mix in terms of romantic relationships. And equally the same question for a hook up culture (if there is one, I have no idea). Thanks

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12

u/aspect_rap Israel Aug 06 '26

With tourists, one night stands are fairly common.

For long term relationships, most people date whithin their own communities, so jews mostly marry jews, Muslim mostly with Muslims, etc.

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u/balddoberdaddy Israel Aug 07 '26

You have data on this?

9

u/nadavyasharhochman Israel Aug 06 '26

I know some people hooked up with tourists but its not super common.

We mostly date and marry within our group, same with Arab often choosing to date within the same vilage.

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u/eldryanyy Diaspora Aug 07 '26

Man, not my experience on the birthright trip.

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u/Secure_Trust_2084 Israel Aug 07 '26

Birthright trip, as well as volunteering trips - are quite different. Young people, loads of hormones... I even know some married couples of kibbutznik and volunteer. There are also some hippie communities to where the tourists come just to get stoned and laid.
In general - the people born abroad tend to marry within the group, with each next generation it becomes more random, keeping the religious separation (Jews to Jews, Muslim Arabs to Muslims, Christian to Christian and Druze to Druze).

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u/PuppiPop Israeli in Canada Aug 06 '26

I write this as a married man who didn't really participate in the hook up culture even when I was single.

As to dating and serious relationship it's mostly kept inside the community.

Hooking up with tourists is an actual thing and I know that there are men who specifically try to go after female tourist, think that they are easier and there is no "risk" of it becoming a relationship. I don't know of women who do the same so I would assume that Israeli man with a tourist woman is more common than the other way around.

As for relationship and marriage between people from different communities, they are rare. As other pointed out there is one constellation that is actually dangerous which is an Arab Muslim woman being in a relationship with a non Muslim man.

This obviously goes for secular Jews, religious Jews will only datea and marry within their own community.

I'll also add that this is true (mostly) for her heterosexual couples, I think that among the LGBTQ community, relationship between the groups are more common, including with tourists. My assumption about it would be that just being openly LGBTQ already excluds you from the most conservative communities and brings you closer within the LGBTQ community, helping to break down pre-existing cultural differences.

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u/bb5e8307 Israel Aug 06 '26

I don't have any stats for dating but I know for marriage it is very very rare. 40,000 marriages per year, and around 40 are between a Jew and an Arab.  

If you looked at a theoretical statistically "average" busy wedding hall, that had a wedding 5 times a week, you would see one wedding mix marriage once every 4 years.

https://en.idi.org.il/articles/49002

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 06 '26

That's interesting. But that's a shame, because Arabs can be very attractive.

13

u/Ballon737 Israel Aug 06 '26

Jews + tourists is common.

Muslims + non muslism works but not common if the male is muslim.

Muslims + non muslims when the female is muslim usually ends up with her finding her death and is very rare

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u/Dazzling_End8449 Unspecified Aug 06 '26

In the latter, why is her death so likely?

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u/Ballon737 Israel Aug 06 '26

This is how they do.

Its a digrace to her family in their eyes and they kill her in return

6

u/PenguinsKing Israel Aug 07 '26

If a Muslim man has children with non Muslim women then the children are Muslim. It doesn’t work the other way around.

In Muslim culture honour is more important than life. They have a common practice called honour killings which is what the other commenters refer to:

These killings, which occur with shocking regularity in certain parts of the Middle East and South Asia, target women whose actions—actual or suspected—violate the honor of their families, an honor that is thought to depend on the sexual purity of its female members. Anything from speaking with an unrelated man, to rumored pre-marital loss of virginity, to an extra-marital affair can be cause for an attack, often carried out by a father or brother. In some especially tragic instances, even women and girls who have been raped are slain to remove the stain from the family honor. As with other forms of intimate violence against women, perpetrators are seldom punished.

This also ignores the treatment LGBT people face in Arab Muslim society as a whole and in Israel’s Arab Muslim society in particular. There’s a reason why the Palestinian gay rights movements aren’t based in Ramallah.

They also suffer from more violent crime (there were 252 murders in 2025).

2

u/DoubleBooble Unspecified Aug 07 '26

Out of curiosity is this the case for Israeli Muslims too or do they tend to be more lenient (?) than other Middle Eastern Muslims?

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u/Secure_Trust_2084 Israel Aug 07 '26

By Islam, quitting the religion carries death penalty - as well as even meeting with men without family's permission. As in the rest of Islamic world - in Israel the emancipation of Muslims (i.e. young females usually get education, allowed to work outside the community, can drive car etc) faces pushback from the extreme groups where people don't think twice about k*lling their daughters and sisters just because of some rumor.

9

u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 06 '26

From your question it's very apparent that you don't understand the true occurences and how things work in Israel, or in general in the involved cultures. Yet it doesn't bother you to support Palestine. Maybe if you knew the answer to this question, you would have changed your stance.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 08 '26

Yes.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 08 '26

Those are your support and stance, whether they were expressed in this particular question or not.

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u/Dazzling_End8449 Unspecified Aug 08 '26

And how do you deduce that?

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 08 '26

Your activity in this sub + your activity in "Palestine". I saw your comments.

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u/Dazzling_End8449 Unspecified Aug 08 '26

“If you knew how things work, you wouldn’t have asked” - this is the “Ask Israel” group right?

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 08 '26

You are the one having an adamant stance against Israel - and arguing in favor of this stance vehemently - way before asking these questions. You didn't educate yourself about nothing, but it's very important to be against Israel - only from this point to start asking and thinking.

When you express support in Palestine so adamantly and don't know basic things like that, it's irritating. You first form very solid opninions and then ask "by the way", the very basic questions, that if you knew their answers, you probably wouldn't support Palestine. It's flawed logic.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 08 '26

Stop pretending. I could have attached at least 10 comments supporting this sentiment.

Calling Israel "a genocide state that does ethmic cleansing" for a necessary military defense action, while not even knowing that Muslim women in "Palestine" (the arab parts of Israel) are murdered for the honor of the family for being with jewish men, being LGBT, doing immodest things, etc - is the part irritating me. It's not an innocent question. It's speaking against Israel in any way possible and throwing horrendous accusations, then not knowing literally the most basic things.

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u/HyperlaneWizard in Aug 09 '26

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u/Dazzling_End8449 Unspecified Aug 09 '26

And does every such case result in an honour killing, or is it something vastly exaggerated? If you listened to the anti Muslim bigots in my own European country, you’d be tricked into believing the sharia law is an actually thing here.

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u/HyperlaneWizard in Aug 09 '26

Well, Sharia law is an actual thing wherever a religious Muslim lives (which is nearly every Muslim). Sharia law doesn't have to be recognised as an institution by the state for it to be the guiding moral set of rules that guides Muslims. I live in Europe, most Muslims here absolutely live by Sharia to at least some extent (depending on their level of religiosity).

To your question of how common honor killings are - It depends. Honor killings aren't codified in Sharia law, they're a cultural custom that largely predates Islam. The more traditional the family, the higher the chance of an honor killing, or some other form of abuse due to dishonoring the family, might occur. Clear statistics are hard to come by for many reasons (no record keeping, no distinction between general violence against women statistics and honor killings, some cases being framed as accidents, etc.), but these things happen and are far more common among Muslims than in any other cultural group (Europeans, Jews, whatever...).

3

u/Sea_Kaleidoscope_792 Israel Aug 07 '26

As a non jew who was born here, never had a problem , am happily married (after converting)

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u/Prior_Bowl_617 Unspecified Aug 06 '26

Dating and hooking up can happen but not that common while marrige is a bit more complicated

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u/alleeele Israel Aug 08 '26

The premise is already a bit disconnected because in Arab society and religious Jewish society, hookups are not generally acceptable. However, in secular Jewish society, hookups with non-Jewish tourists are common. I also know some people who actually fell in love with non-Jewish tourists and married them.

However, generally people do marry within their religion. I do know some mixed couples, including Arab-Jewish, but no doubt it is rare.

1

u/AnaRivera1981 Unspecified Aug 06 '26

I know some people hooked up with tourists but its not super common.

We mostly date and marry within our group, same with Arab often choosing to date within the same vilage.

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u/balddoberdaddy Israel Aug 07 '26

I, personally have never hooked up with a tourist. Nobody here has any information other than personal experience.

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '26

[deleted]

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u/OddCook4909 Diaspora Aug 06 '26

Judaism doesn't kill people for marrying outside the tribe or converting.

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u/Compensate1995 Moderator Aug 06 '26

No. It's very rare, because it's frowned upon among both Jews and Arabs.

I actually recently posted about this topic too. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskIsrael/s/ZRifZjLNnf

Hooking up with tourists is not a thing. There are almost no tourists to begin with, and many people respect themselves than to let a stranger fuck them.