Group therapy in a blog.
“Shtetl-Lovely” – The Allure of Jewish Women
And now, for something completely different…
If you’re tired of all the negative stereotyping of Jewish women as overinvolved, shrill, shrewish (“funny, she doesn’t look shrewish”), superficial harpies (and why wouldn’t you be?), here’s something a bit unusual. Friend of JDaters Anonymous Van Wallach has now published a treatise on the appeal of the Jewess, titled “Smart, Vulnerable, and Shtetl-Lovely: The Allure of Jewish Women.”
While the titular love Wallach describes was no doubt something that he had within him, he was inspired to write this piece after reading a Matchup column by Chicago-based freelancer Abigail Pickus (who once wrote for PresenTense) in the Jewish Week (where someone else used to write a column). The column shared her experiences on the receiving end of a litany of reasons why her Jewish male friend wouldn’t date Jewish women. Wallach didn’t just get angry – he got writing:
Why […] did I turn to and stay with Jewish women? Something about them clicked with me on a deep level. I once described a woman as “smart, vulnerable, and shtetl-lovely.†That’s my highest praise for the appeal of the Jewish woman’s mind, heart, and body. They are all allure, and if they freshen their lipstick over a sushi dinner, I’ll follow them anywhere – and I have. A Jewish man who dismisses such women as a group is, in technical terms, meshuggenah.
I’ll just add that anyone who dismisses Jewish men or Jewish women as a group isn’t helping. Let’s acknowledge that there are trends, and there are exceptions. And most of us are really looking for someone who is – in some way, even if it’s a small way only perceptible to us – exceptional.
Check out the whole piece over at Blogcritics.
Very nice, and thanks for the pick up here Esther. But Van Wallach might have well been speaking for many of us in his heretofore (?) unrequited mission to find his own Jewish lovely. He’s a 50 something guy (51 perhaps? He was a Frosh in 1976 in college), and he’s still out there dating. That should indeed tell us quite a bit. Despite his fine sentiments, and an ability to express them reasonably well, he remains single! And he’s an enthusiastic booster for the tribe & Jewish women everywhere (he dates internationally), and yet… Croppers! This is just so depressingly & bloody typical somehow. We’re still seemingly unable to hook up a new generation of Jewish singles, and it’s really not a ‘new’ problem either. Not quite as serious as the water issues in Israel, but still, perplexing just the same. (And much harder to resolve BTW). Cheers & Good Luck, ‘VJ’
He’s a 50 something guy (51 perhaps? He was a Frosh in 1976 in college), and he’s still out there dating. …Despite his fine sentiments, and an ability to express them reasonably well, he remains single!
VJ, there is no contradiction here: most likely he pursues and describes women who are 15+ years his junior. No wonder he remains single; so are many men of his age group, for whom their (fem) peers seem invisible.
Not everyone stereotypes Jewish women!! If you want a book about a “Hot” Jewish woman — a woman rabbi — then go to Amazon.com and check out my latest novel, “Loving Rabbi Thalia Kleinman,” about a divorced middle-aged New Yorker who falls in love with a beautiful rabbi. Go figure. Here’s the press release.
Gary Morgenstein
WHY MUST LOVE ALWAYS BE SO DIFFICULT?
GARY MORGENSTEIN’S NEW NOVEL “LOVING RABBI THALIA KLEINMAN†LOOKS AT LOVE, SEX AND ROMANCE
FROM A MAN’S PERSPECTIVE
AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY ON AMAZON.COM
New York – What happens when a hopelessly romantic divorced man falls madly in love with a beautiful woman rabbi — but he’s not yet over his ex-wife? In other words, why are relationships always so difficult? Especially when you’re starting over again with all that baggage…
Welcome to Gary Morgenstein’s new novel, Loving Rabbi Thalia Kleinman, a look at love in the 21st Century from a man’s perspective: good, bad and everything in between, available exclusively on Amazon.com.
As this poignant romantic triangle opens, women’s cable network publicist Joss Katz crashes a bat-mitzvah and becomes smitten with the enigmatic Rabbi Kleinman. Desperate to meet her, Joss contrives a wild excuse about needing spiritual guidance and they begin a roller-coaster relationship.
But Kleinman has a past shadowed by terrorism. She manipulates Joss into mentoring her younger brother Bobby. Brilliant and troubled, Bobby is embroiled with Meir Schlom, who has a dangerous and controversial scheme for confronting surging world-wide anti-Semitism.
Besides pursuing Thalia and his kooky former spouse Ellen, Joss deals with his curmudgeonly roommate and best friend, Mandelbaum. Embittered by his messy divorce, Mandy creates an organization dedicated to a life free of entanglements with women called Straight and Happy Without Them.
Gary Morgenstein’s previous novels are Take Me Out to the Ballgame and The Man Who Wanted to Play Center Field for the New York Yankees. His latest novel Jesse’s Girl, about a widowed Brooklyn father’s desperate search for his adopted teenage son who has run away from a wilderness treatment program, is also available on Amazon.com. His play Ponzi Man played to sell-out crowds at a recent New York Fringe Festival.
Contact: Gary Morgenstein, 917-376-4278, garymorgenstein9@aol.com
It is too late for me, I already, I gave up and intermarried. Most of my Jewish male friends from Israel, many who go to shul regularly have married Asian women. Most of my non-Jewish friends as well have married foreign women. Mostly for second marriages. We wanted to be treated well. Men want to be approved of. No where am I reading or hearing that Jewish men, or men should be treated well. We are rejecting crass materialism, nastiness, anti-male biggotry, status snobbery and an overall detachment from reality. By making themselves untenable, the self respecting Jewish male has to marry out. The Jewish male also has to accept that they are not wanted in the main stream Jewish community. For the reasonable daughters of our people, to net one of our men who are still holding out, the best catch phrase for them to click on your on line entry is to lead with ‘I’m not like that!’ Jewish men often have experienced their mothers, witnessed their fathers being emasculated (in public too) and have had enough of “that.” And so those of you who are not like “that,” let it be known and you will get more inquiries.
I read all the comments… and I quite disgusted that all you jewish men would put down your own women…. I think the reason is that most of you men aren’t treating them they want they want to be treated. That’s why they don’t date you or stay with you. They’d rather date outside their own community… cause the other nationalities know what the jewish woman wants from her man. The reason alot of jewish men aren’t manly enough is that they aren’t working out at the gym and getting in tip top shape… and women don’t really care if you have the material possessions what they care is how u use your tool that GOD gave you… the most important thing is how you care yourself… I just think that alot of jewish men putting down your own tribe or race or whatever you want to call it and that’s a shame since your culture is one of the greatest in all humanity.
but is van really single? how do we know?
Here’s a late reply for everybody who wondered if I was single and is sure I date women 15 years younger than me. I’m dating a Jewish woman who lives less than an hour’s drive from me, and she’s my age. “Dating out” has never been an interest of mine, other than Jewish women from outside the US, but even that was ultimately not what worked for me.