Shuls back New Year plan to boost marriage
A MATCH-MAKING initiative is being launched at Orthodox synagogues over the High Holy-Days amid concerns voiced by rabbis over the difficulties people face in finding Jewish partners.
Led by Mitzvah Day interfaith chair Daniela Pears, the We Go Together scheme will see leaflets placed on men’s seats at more than a dozen London area United Synagogue, Sephardi and Chabad shuls over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, inviting singles aged 25 and over to sign up.
Respondents will be interviewed by one of 15 volunteers from a variety of congregations. They will be asked to rank a prospective partner’s characteristics, from least to most important.
Their answers will be used to match them with single women, using a formula devised by Naftali Brawer, former rabbi of Borehamwood and Elstree Synagogue.
We Go Together already has a database of more than 100 single women.
Mrs Pears, the wife of philanthropist Sir Trevor Pears, said: “People would always ask me what single guys I knew for these fabulous single women, and I didn’t know any. But these fabulous single guys must exist.
“It is very hard to meet people sometimes. Someone very close to me was on her own for 37 years. This project is for people who want to find their life partner.”
She added: “The Chief Rabbi said making a match is the highest mitzvah you can do. Hopefully we will get a lot of men responding — I would encourage them to.
“It’s a free service and it can be done in confidence. They have nothing to lose. We’re all doing it because we really care.”
Four out of 10 Jewish adults are not living as part of a couple, according to a 2016 Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) report. Jewish divorce increased by three per cent between 2001 and 2011, with 17 per cent of adults having experienced divorce. The intermarriage rate is 26 per cent.
The report also found that Jews were marrying for the first time seven years later than they were in the 1970s, with grooms aged 32, and brides aged 29.
Laura Janner-Klausner, the senior rabbi for Reform Judaism, attributed the problem of loneliness among diaspora Jews to a “numerical challenge”.
When Jews went out of the community to study or work, “the reality is the majority of people [they are with] are not Jewish”.
Mrs Pears — a member of South Hampstead United, one of the participating shuls — said this year’s project would be a pilot scheme. But if there is proven demand, We Go Together could eventually be extended to the regions and Progressive communities.
Dating website JDate.com and its sister service, JSwipe — described as Tinder for Jews — have become increasingly popular among singles in recent years, mirroring the rise of secular dating websites and smartphone apps.
Brad Goldberg, the board chair at Spark Networks, which owns both services, told the New York Times in
December that 70 per cent of US Jews have used either JDate or JSwipe.
The sites have one million registered users combined and JSwipe boasts users in 70 countries.
Rabbi Israel Elia, minister of Lauderdale Road (Sephardi) Synagogue, said apps and dating sites “could not even be compared” to meeting someone face to face. With today’s young generation “more independently-minded” and people living peripatetic lives it was difficult to find a partner.
“Modern city living is tough. There are long working hours and there isn’t time to socialise — or at least socialise in the same way [as in former times].
“You can be somewhere with 400 people and it isn’t the same as being at a dinner party or a gathering where people know why they are there.
“The art of match-making is about bringing people together who have the same values, not just picking people randomly. You invite single people for Shabbat. If they then get in touch after, that’s great. But if you say, ‘you’re coming to meet Susan or David’, it becomes a burden. It depends how it’s done but it is one of the most important mitzvot we can do.”
Rabbi Elia said he meets congregants and their parents who worry they will not get married, as did Rabbi Mendel Cohen, of the Saatchi Synagogue in St John’s Wood.
He said: “This initiative is vital because the age-old Jewish shidduch method of introduction, which includes a communal sense of responsibility and personal knowledge of individuals and their circumstances, cannot be substituted by algorithms and apps.
“We Go Together will emphasise that personal touch and empower the many. I have congregants and have met many individuals who are divorced, widowed or have simply not been able to find their love.” Rabbi Sam Taylor, the community minister at Western Marble Arch Synagogue said the problem of finding partners is “very real in the community and is of genuine concern to many people”.
Problem of finding a partner is very real
APHOTO MESSAGE pings on Maya’s phone. The picture is of a young man and the sender is her mother’s sister, Sonia. “I already know this person,” she texts back. “Any good?” replies Sonia. “Good for what?” responds Maya.
“Nooky? Boyfriend?” answers her aunt within seconds.
Maya is 32 years old, university educated and has a good job. She owns her own flat, drives a nice car and fits most people’s definition of physically attractive. She is also a committed Jew who is actively looking for a long-term Jewish partner.
Actively really is the operative word. On average, Maya goes on two dates with Jewish men every week. “It sounds a lot, I know, but I work on the law of averages,” she half-jokes. “I am under an absurd amount of pressure from my parents to meet someone. And my grandma piles it on, too. She says she’s worried she’ll be in her grave before I’m under the chuppah.”
In fact, her parents and grandmother set up many of Maya’s weekly assignations. Others are arranged by friends, her parents’ friends and through family members like Sonia. In general, dates coordinated by her family are the least successful of Maya’s trysts. “Not much thought goes into them, to be honest,” she says. “The thinking tends to be: you’re single, he’s single, therefore you are a match.”
Until a couple of months ago, Maya also met potential suitors through Jewish phone dating apps such as JSwipe and JCrush. But at the moment she’s having what feels like a much needed break from online Yiddishe dating. “It got beyond dispiriting,” she says. “I ended up feeling utterly disposable. Many of my Jewish girlfriends feel similarly. Dating apps delude people into thinking that there is an endless choice of potential partners out there. They effectively encourage a culture of rejection.”
And in her experience, Jewish men do more of the rejection than Jewish women. “When it comes to the actual date, there is definitely a breed of spoilt and rather selfimportant Jewish man who seems to think he can do better than the woman who is sitting in front of him. I have met him more times than I care to recall. Women, meanwhile, tend to be more forgiving about men’s looks. It’s not their highest need.”
Yes, looks. Physical attraction is, of course, part of romance. But in a Jewish dating scene where it is now entirely normal to find your beshert online and in which people, therefore, know relatively little about each other before they meet in the flesh, the social media profile pic has assumed a disproportionate importance
Maya’s friend Lucy compares today’s Jewish dating scene to flicking through an Argos catalogue.
“You think, ooh, I like the look of that kettle, but I’ll just look at the others on the next page. And then I’ll check out the page after that. There is no incentive to discover the person behind the photo.
“Basically, you’re judging a person’s partner potential on entirely physical grounds. That’s why people use filters to make themselves look younger and slimmer, and why some even post pics that look nothing like themselves. The pressure to look alluring is massive.”
Unsurprisingly, JSwipe founder, David Yarus, demurs. “The truth is that when you are at a bar, you are also most likely approaching someone based on physical attraction rather than presumed intellect,” he says. “That level of depth is revealed through conversation and shared experience.”
“People share quite a lot of information on their JSwipe profiles, from interests and education to mutual friends and level of Jewish observance. There are plenty of ways to paint a pretty robust picture of who you are. People who don’t take the time to read through someone’s profile, who use the app whimsically, probably behave similarly in real life.”
He also points out that JSwipe, which boasts over a million users worldwide, billions of monthly swipes, millions of matches, thousands of relationships and hundreds of marriages has enhanced and streamlined the experience of Jewish dating. “We set out to bring the latest technology and innovation in online dating to millennial Jews, in a fun and friendly way,” he says about the app which launched over Passover 2014. “Some would say there is now the paradox of choice, meaning there are so many options that it becomes difficult to choose. I’d rather be struggling with many amazing people to consider than struggling to find someone.”
The problem is, says Talia, 36, that many of those “amazing people” are not actually that serious about finding their significant other. Desperate to marry and bring Jewish children into the world, she’s been dating through social media for the past five years.
“Yes, you can now live in London
Dating is like buying a kettle from a catalogue
and cross with people in Bristol and Birmingham who, in years gone by, you would never have met. But it has also made the whole business incredibly casual: dating other Jews is as easy as swiping right, and, conversely, rejecting them is as easy as swiping left.”
Jonathan, 25, agrees. “I used Tinder, Bumble and JSwipe constantly when I was at university, and would swipe pretty absentmindedly. If the woman seemed reasonably attractive, I’d swipe right. I think that’s how most men, Jewish or not, treat dating apps. Then one day I found myself on a bus swiping in full view of the people sitting next to and behind me, and it made me stop. Suddenly, it just felt inappropriate.”
And, arguably, ineffective: now happily coupled, Jonathan met Sophie through mutual friends. If their first encounter had been via a Jewish dating app, would he have swiped left or right on the woman who is now his girlfriend? “Right. But she’d have definitely swiped left. Looks-wise, I’m not her usual type,” he says.
Although he was spared that particular humiliation, Jonathan has endured his share of bruising online dating encounters. “A Jewish girl and I were approaching a date, and a couple of days before I texted her to finalise the details, but she didn’t text back. The uncertainty didn’t feel good. Then on the day of the actual date, she blocked me on Whatsapp. It felt pretty horrible. She could have just politely cancelled.”
But he didn’t let things fester for long. “It wasn’t personal,” he says. “The Jewish dating scene is just rather superficial.”
Maya agrees. “You can’t fret about rejection,” she says. “There could be countless reasons why you’ve been turned down. Your shoes, your conversation, or the guy might be seeing four people at the same time and have just forgotten about you. Whatever the explanation, you can’t linger on the rejection. My most used word these days is: next.”
Esther, 41, isn’t so philosophical. “All I want is to meet a nice, normal Jewish guy. My self-esteem has been crushed by the community’s toxic dating scene. I don’t go to shul any more because everyone in my age group is wearing a hat. I feel like a freak.”
She also skips shul because she is not
I feel like a freak in shul, not wearing a hat
overly enamoured of her rabbi. “The other day, I told him that I am going to start dating outside the community because he has not helped me an iota. And all he said was: shush, close the door, not in
front of your parents.” Maya has also sought the help of her rabbi. “He was sympathetic, and set me up on two dates, but neither worked out. One guy he suggested was just too young for me, and the other was just not on the same page. After that, I just felt too humiliated to go back and ask him to arrange date number three.”
Meanwhile, Rabbi Laura JannerKlausner, Senior Rabbi of the UK’s Reform movement, introduces Jews to each other with passion and purpose. “I was introduced to my husband by an aunt, and I still stand by the old-fashioned introduction. Some of my colleagues are frightened to get involved in case it doesn’t work out, but I say bring it on, take a risk. “Social media seem a very transitory way of assessing someone. It doesn’t match people to reality. And it doesn’t sound as humiliating for the men as it is for the women.”
She also thinks the community as a whole should be more resourceful about helping Jews who want to meet each other romantically. “The most important thing to extrapolate from this is that people like being Jewish. Why are we not celebrating this?”
Why indeed, asks Maya. “From my early 20s, I’ve imagined my life with a Jewish husband and two children, and that’s not how things have turned out. But I have to remain positive. It shows on dates if you are not.”