What is the difference between trying to a preserve a specific culture and xenophobia?

This is a personal choice, not a societal choice. A group, of which one may be a member, may make a pitch for marrying within the group for various reasons, but it is an individual’s [or couple’s] choice.

Xenophobia is the fear of people from another culture. Choosing not to marry someone from another culture does not mean you have a fear of them or any other ill feelings. As @anartist stated, who a person decides to marry is a personal choice.

What follows is personal opinion.

Xenophobia is an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. I don’t perceive “choosing to marry someone of my own culture” xenophobia. It’s actually something I’d say most people do.

Now, if I didn’t want to live in the same neighborhood as someone who’s foreign, or shop at a foreign-owned store, or send my kid to school with foreign kids (all based solely on the foreignness), or if I didn’t want to sit next to one on the bus, or was afraid of an agenda they don’t actually have, or any other (key word) unreasonable fear or hatred, I’d be totally xenophobic. And chances are, if I’m really xenophobic to the point of fear or hatred of those unlike me, chances are slim that I’d become close enough friends with someone to consider dating or marrying one.

Also, I think if they were told, “Non Jews are bad and yucky,” that might be xenophobia. But most people only marry once (or maybe twice) in their lives, and choose similar people for that level of commitment anyway.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this. When you look for someone to marry, it’s a whole different set of criteria from when you look for friends or neighbors, even though there may be some general degree of overlap. I don’t think I’m racist, for example, if I prefer to marry someone that looks mostly like me, although I have friends who do not look like me. “Fear and hatred” are the meaning we’re going for here, not just simply “don’t want to commit to for the rest of my life and have kids with.”

@laureth: I guess I feel like refusing to marry someone on the basis of some arbitrary group membership strikes me as completely unreasonable. And even if feelings to the out-group aren’t as extreme as fear/hatred, it seems like a difference in degree rather than in kind. What if I said, “I don’t hate black people, I just refuse to even consider ever marrying one because I want to preserve white culture”?

@nikipedia – If you felt that way about marrying someone in the out-group, you might never get close enough to an eligible person of that culture to consider marrying them. (You probably wouldn’t even find them very attractive if you thought that way about them.) I’d say that the xenophobia is then not about the marriage refusal per se, but in the attitude that dictates it.

However, while I’d have to ask what “white culture” is, there does seem to be a Jewish culture. A good friend of mine fell in love with a Jewish man, but she had to convert to marry him. They have a son they’re raising as Jewish. It was very important to him (and his family) that the whole Jewish thing be preserved. Perhaps (if one of these Jewish people falls in love with a goy) it would be OK for something like that to happen – but would you see that as xenophobic? And perhaps the folks of Birthright Israel see it as a shortcut to all that mucking around to just straight-up marry someone who already has that culture?

I understand where they are coming from, but for myself..I guess as a regular white person, I can’t wrap my mind around feeling that way. I know of plenty of black women (from certain debate forums) that absolutely refused to ever date a white man, saying they wanted and had to be with a black man..to preserve their culture. (nothing religious, just being black). It blew my mind. I personally find it xenophobic, even if it’s not outright hatred.
It’d be like me raising my boys to only marry a white girl because we have to continue the white culture/race/whatever… If I ever said that to anyone, I’d be pinned for a bigot. (btw, I don’t feel that way.)
I also can’t imagine limiting myself when it came to love. I just so happened to fall in love with another white person, but I never really cared. I have dated many Jewish men (actually I’d say 75% of them were Jewish lol) None ever mentioned having to marry another Jewish girl, and my best friend also did that Birthright trip, and she said it’s not important to her to marry a Jewish guy.

I think it’s the younger generation of Jewish people that have no trouble marrying outside the faith. The older generation (i.e. the one that sponsors Birthright trips) are appalled at this, and are trying to change it however they can. These trips are one example.

I don’t think cultural preservation and the fear of strangers or what is strange are the same thing. Sometimes cultural preservation does take on an ingroup vs. outgroup mentality but that does not mean that they fear the outgroup but rather they hold their group as most valuable to them and would like to see it continue without corruption by others. Now that may sound a bit odd, as if one is assuming the “others” will be corrupt, but history has taught us, and specifically many of these groups, that is exactly what happens.

So I guess until people do not fear forced assimilation, do not have to fear appropriation, and do not feel oppression cultural preservation will take a form of ingroup vs. outgroup. I personally do not feel this is xenophobic or negative. In fact I support such efforts. So long as they outgroup is not persecuted.

xenophobia: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign—Merriam-Webster ONLINE

It doesn’t say a thing about an admonition to marry someone of the same ethnic group.

Raised in a liberal Jewish home, there is a mixed message of sorts, to have a strong Jewish Identity, be encouraged to become friends with people from all races, religions, and cultures, fundamentally believe all people are equal, but then have it followed with, but when it comes to marriage marry a Jew. My parents never said I must marry a Jewish person, but my dad did say on occasion that it is probably easier to marry someone Jewish, because there would be less possibly conflict over religion and even culturally my spouse would be more likely to be similar. As I get older I feel more deeply the desire to preserve the Jewish culture and religion, and I do believe intermarriage can lead to less and less Jewish identity, and that atheism probably has probably created somewhat of a problem for the Jews. Having said all of that I am an atheist, and I married a man who was raised catholic, although he has a very Jewish name, his father was raised jewish, and he chose to convert to Judaism when we married.

In my mind, if I had children, even if they decided to follow my husband’s family and identify Catholic, they would have to know that antisemites will not care, they will be the children of a Jewish mother, so my kids might as well know that fact, and maybe have some understanding of the Jewish people over history.

I did not exactly answer the OP’s question, rather tried to explain what might go on in the head of a Jewish person. To answer the question more directly, xenophobia is a hatred or fear as @eden2eve stated. Wanting to marry someone similar to you does not mean you hate or fear other groups. Jews feel strongly that we can live side by side with other religions, that race is a non-issue, etc. And, when I say similar, it can mean similar religion, similar hobbies, similar politically, it is whatever the individual decides is important to them, and important in having a life long relationship with another person. The Jews who encourage other Jews to marry within the religion hate the idea of Jews dissappearing from the face of the earth. It is a mixture of knowing we have survived for over 5,000 years and recent history like the holocaust reinforces that the way we fight back is by still existing.

The definition of xenophobia that @laureth has posted is questionable to say the least. An ”unreasonable (?) fear or hatred….”, as opposed to what, a reasonable fear or hatred of foreigners etc.? I wonder if irrational would be a more apt word?
That said, there seems to be a confusion here about social/religious culture, something that can be adopted, and ethnic/racial type culture, something which one either is or is not.
One can convert to most religions and conform to societal conventions, but one cannot do the same for racial types. However, one can choose to exercise a natural (if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be possible) choice to effect the course of the next generation by either keeping to type or not. I personally have no preference either way. But I do think that it should be down to the choice of the individual and that people should be encouraged to follow their hearts.
One Humanity, many expressions.

I think anti-miscegenation is a perfect way to define such beliefs and practices. My Mexican grandparents had 3 children, only one married/had children with another Mexican (and that was only after he had 3 children and was married 20 years to a white woman). Most of us 3rd generation kids don’t speak Spanish or practice much traditional Mexican culture at all. The Mexicans around me never tried to insist on preserving our culture by marrying within the ethnicity.

Also, where I live people are mutts. Racial and ethic mixing is commonplace. I don’t even look twice when I see mixed race/ethnicity couples. And about half of the Jewish people I know are married to or partnered with non-Jews. A lot of the Jewish people I know from my generation are Hannukah and Rosh Hashanah Jews; like the Easter and Christmas Christians. From what I understand, they have no desire to preserve or follow certain traditions.

There are always those who cannot deal with change and will do anything they can to preserve traditions, even when the younger generation does not hold the same values.

What @RedPowerLady said. At my Christian (grade) school, we were outright told to marry (in due time) other Christians to preserve our own faith. That’s technically why it was implemented, but it could easily bleed into xenophobia, which is looking outward with scorn. Whereas I feel that cultural preservation is keeping your own inward values intact.

We can preserve specific cultures without being xenophobic.