Esther Kustanowitz

Even if you’re not a “Sex and the City” fan, you may be aware that the quintessential single woman’s nightmare used to be “eaten by her own cats.” But today’s news eclipses that scenario and substitutes a more horrifying situation: not only dying alone in your apartment, but no one noticing you’re missing for 42 years:

Hedviga Golik made herself a cup of tea and sat down to watch some television in her hometown of Zagreb, Croatia. Sadly, she died in her chair. This was in 1966. She was just found, 42 years later, in her time capsule mausoleum where she’s been sitting ever since. She never finished her tea.

That’s some powerfully lethal tea in Croatia. But seriously, folks, this has all the marks of an urban legend, as people pointed out in the comments: no one noticed she was missing? there was no rent to pay or electric bills, or anything like that? no mail piling up? But a peripheral search of the internet revealed no listing on Snopes, and many citations of this story in the general media. So…true or false? What are your thoughts? And if this isn’t your “worst case single scenario,” then what is?

I wrote the thing weeks ago, but then found myself in Tmol Shilshom, a Jerusalem restaurant where the theme is books. Surrounded by the works of famous Hebrew and English authors, I finished the final column. I usually don’t reprint the entire thing on my blog, but it will be the last time, so I wanted to share.

(And yes, columns are still available for reprint.)

Thanks to everyone for their support for the column over the last four and a half years, as well as your commitment to this ongoing conversation. Discussion on this and other singles-related issues to continue here, of course.

“Know When to Walk Away”
by Esther D. Kustanowitz

How does one become a Jewish singles columnist, anyway? On recent reflection, it has occurred to me that perhaps I’ve only found myself here, an untrained sociologist Jane Goodall-ing it in the singles jungle, because of the metaphorical significance and transformative power of transit.

Several years ago, during a work trip to Israel, I had been picked up at the airport by a taxi and was traveling to Jerusalem when the driver began making Hebrew conversation. It started innocently, with a “welcome to Israel” and “what are you doing here?” and ended in a question I didn’t quite understand. “At revakah?” he asked. “Revakah?” I asked. “Revakah zeh lo nesuah (‘revakah’ means ‘not married’).”

I had never heard the word before. Most of my Hebrew was biblical, and most unmarried biblical women were referred to as betulah, which most English Bibles translate as “virgin.” Where, linguistically, could “revakah” have come from? I tried to “shoresh it out,” parsing the word and looking for a root. Since it was unlikely that the resh-vav-kuf could be read as “rock,” the best logical word origin I could find was the word reyk, meaning empty. If Genesis was right and it was “not good for a person to be alone,” then was it a huge leap to identify a person who hadn’t found their soul mate as, to an extent, empty? The Hebrew language seemed to think not. In that moment, an idea began its path of transit.

More recently, I was on a bus, spiraling down the West Coast. The sea was out of sight, and clouds sagged low over the mountains, which rolled past the windows as if they were on a conveyor belt, and I was the one who was standing still. I knew it was an illusion; the bus moved, and the scenery passed, but instead of feeling like an active participant in our progress, I felt detached and stagnant. Noticing the vast expanse of Northern California land, I felt the solitude descend, a curtain closing on a dramatic chapter.
At the end of that trip down the coast, I found myself thinking about journeys, the constant wandering of being in transit, and — because I was headed to Las Vegas — the song lyric that urged me to “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” I knew I wasn’t quite at “know when to run,” but “know when to walk away” began to resonate strongly. I don’t like leaving my destiny to chance — heading off into the great unknown has never been an area of comfort for me. But it became clear that any more hands of solitaire or broken gambling metaphors, and I would risk the erosion of the parts of me that I’m most proud of, precisely the ones I’d hoped to one day share with a family.

My four years writing this column seem commensurate to an academic degree in relationships, yet somehow I’m ABD, and without the coveted “M.R.S.” degree. Perhaps I need to concentrate on field work, move beyond the theoretical into the actual. This column has been the longest relationship of my life. But I can’t marry a column. The transition will be one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but I think that it’s time.

I don’t know what is or isn’t in the cards for me. If God is calling the shots, I’d like to believe that the Deity wants me to be happier than I am, if only selfishly, for the strengthening of my faith weakened by staying single. I’d still like to be able to contribute to the expansion of the nuclear family I’m already so blessed to have. Or perhaps I’m committing hubris — an English major’s favorite sin — by thinking that I’m on God’s agenda at all. I’m aware that my life has been a series of unique opportunities that have been both humbling and a blessing. It may make me selfish, but I’d still hoped to have more.

There has to be more than just the illusion of progress. It’s a gamble, but every change is. It’s time to put one foot in front of the other, fix my eyes on the future, and walk away from what’s comfortable, into what might, one day, be possible. I’m in transit again. Let the chips fall where they may. And next time an Israeli taxi driver asks me to define my status, whatever it is, I intend to celebrate it.

Esther D. Kustanowitz thanks her editors, readers, family and friends for their support of this column and her obsession with Hebrew. In her “retirement,” she will be working on her book about living Jewish and single, and will continue to blog at MyUrbanKvetch.com and JDatersAnonymous.com, among other places. You can always reach her at jdatersanonymous@gmail.com.

That’s right. JDA is four years old today.

Which means it’s time for a retrospective…

2004
The first post
A desperate plea no one listened to

2005
Pondering technology, not for the last time

2006
The power of paying, or “the issue that won’t go away”
On being a woman among men

2007
The “Single Semite of the Month” category, by now all-but-abandoned
A resolution

2008
A week in Jewish singles stories

Thanks for joining me on this journey. Here’s to more productive discussion and good times.

Generally speaking, I hate generalizations. I try not to use them, although they are every singles columnist’s folly: “men do this,” and “women like that,” even if we preface them with “generally,” we do no one a service with collective assumptions. Statements like “women aren’t funny” make me cringe, almost as much as all the exasperated grunts of “I officially hate men!” do.

This is why, especially absent of verifiable data (whatever that means), I hate it when people make generalizations, and not surprisingly, I hate it the most when Jewish men do it about Jewish women. For every guy I find who says “I love Jewish women, I don’t know what those guys are talking about,” there seems to be four who can rattle off a list of reasons why Jewish women are not worth the effort: “superficial,” “snobby,” “after a man who’s rolling in the Benyamins.” Some of these men are also the ones who whine about being rejected for their height or hairlines, and who turn around and reject women for their body type. Are there some women (Jewish and non-) who are superficial and only judge by appearances and wallet size? Of course. But I’m not ready to generalize that out to apply to an entire population of single women, just like I’m not willing to call all Jewish men wimpy, nerdy and boring.

I also hate trying to defend every Jewish woman to people who are never going to believe me no matter how persuasive I am. And if I ever find myself fitting into one of the stereotypes in my dating or writing life, even for a minute, I make the conscious choice to pull myself out of it. I don’t want to be judged by a generalization of a perception, but I also want to be myself.

And I really don’t like it when friends make “neutral observations” that are in in no way neutral and–as much as they are meant as compliments–sound in fact like insults. Like, “East Coast Jewish women are too difficult, too challenging, too spoiled and difficult to please….it’s no wonder Jewish men choose different women to date. I’m not saying that about you, specifically, just generally.” Nice. Usually, it’s followed up with some sort of “some of my best friends are Jewish women” comment that says “hey, I’m not the bad guy here–I’d like to see Jewish women get married as much as the next guy, but it just ain’t gonna happen if they continue to be the way they are.” And yes, that last part (italics) is a direct quote from a friend of a friend.

It seems to me–generally–that such generalizations and stereotypings are only permitted because most of the time, they’re uttered by Jews about other Jews. Coming from other people, this kind of talk is either called racism or anti-Semitism, or Woody Allen-style self-hating neurosis, or misogyny. Or something.

Italics Guy asked a friend of mine to find out the answer to the following question. “Why do you think so many American Jewish women over 30 are still (disproportionately, as compared to other women their age) single, and can’t find someone to marry”?

Obviously, I’ve been writing columns about this for years. What’s your take?