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Posts tagged jewish singles
Forget the American Jewish Dating Scene: Let’s Go European!
514 years
At the end of his travels through Europe, JTA’s Ben Harris (“The Wandering Jew”) has uncovered a lot of Jewish Europe. How fitting to end his European journey with a party called “the Ball,” at which attendees tell you straight out: they’re here to woo. “To woo?” “Yes, to woo.” (I actually think he was talking about not knowing “to who” he’s going to talk to, but “to woo” makes some logical sense as well.)
Warning – this clip, filmed in Brussels at the annual Ball held by the European Center for Jewish Students, may contain the following:
*Unlicensed use of Beyonce songs
*Footage of Jews dancing
*Strobe lighting
*A woman wearing one of those skinny scarves
*Shocking images of spontaneous Hebrew bus singing and rapping
*Euphemisms like “raring to go”
*A DJ trying to be supercool while in denial about his DJing at a Jewish meat market
*One couple trying to get their “Jewish continuity” on
*Jews who come from all over Europe including…Mexico
*Did we mention footage of Jews dancing?
Hareidi Singles Strategy: Marry By 20, Or You’re Out!
315 years
Today, the Telegraph blog over at the JTA shared a story from the Hareidi (Ultra-Orthodox) world (via YnetNews): that older bachelors who were not married (and who were not yeshiva students) be punished: with banishment from the city of Jerusalem. This class of toxic older bachelors, shirking their responsibilities to be fruitful and multiply consists of those over the wizened age of 20.
The ruling was issued by Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, head of the Hazon Yaakov yeshiva and son of Shas’ spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who noted that:
[…] in the past it was customary to banish “older” single men from the capital as punishment for their refusal to marry and provide for a family.
In recent generations, Sephardi rabbis decided to annul this regulation, but according to Rabbi Yosef it should be reinstated. “Only a yeshiva student who studies Torah has an exceptional permission to postpone marriage, if he fears that marriage might distract him from his studies. But normally one must not delay marriage till after 20, and those who do had better leave Jerusalem and go study somewhere else,” he wrote.
Banishment. Somewhere, Jewish demographers and those who are obsessed with the singles crisis are saying, “Wow. We totally should have thought of that.”
Happy Tu B’Av: Jewish Holiday of Love (If You’re Lucky)
116 years
As happens in the Jewish calendar, last night began a holiday that continues today: Tu B’Av, the traditional Jewish holiday of love. The timing is designed so that after Tish’ah B’Av, the Ninth of Av fast day, which recalls the tragedies of the Jewish people especially the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, we affirm life with joy, celebration and looking toward a future (read: the hope of future Jewish babies).
I was supposed to go to the Bangitout Tu B’Av party in NYC–which draws about 800-1000 Jews all (theoretically) looking for relationships. If I still had the Jewish Week singles column, I would have gone for research, but since Jewish singles isn’t my official pring beat anymore, this year, I was going just for me. But it wasn’t in the cards. (Read why here.)
Because last week was Tish’ah B’Av, this Shabbat is Shabbat Nachamu, the “Shabbat of Consolation” on which Madonna will be justifying her love with her husband through renewal of vows, and which traditionally has served as a designated Jewish singles weekend for the eternally hopeful.
But singles weekends are expensive, so many will take a less costly route and gather in Central Park on Shabbat for picnicking and kibbitzing. Who knows? I might even be there.
And now, a Tu B’Av video courtesy of some of my blog friends, including Benji Lovitt of WhatWarZone. Happy Tu B’Av!