Posts tagged tu b’av

How to Celebrate Tu B’Av: The Ten Suggestions

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Arriving imminently, the Jewish holiday of love.

To celebrate, you can:

1) Watch Benji Lovitt try to get a date for the holiday

2) Go to a local Jewish singles party celebration of the holiday, like tomorrow night’s LoveFest 2009 sponsored by JConnectLA or Bangitout’s NY White Party (now to be held on Thursday because of a rain threat).

3) Find. Me. Somebody to Loooove.

4) Remember that last year, Madonna and Guy Ritchie used Tu B’Av as a chance to rejustify their love.

5) Read about how I once jinxed the Bangitout Tu B’Av party.

6) Reassess the pros and cons of speed dating, created by Rabbi Yaacov Deyo in 1998.

7) Listen to Galgalatz, Israeli radio, for a menu of songs including “All You Need is Love” (The Beatles), “I’m Yours” (Jason Mraz) and – of course – Lady Gaga’s “Love Game,” with the immortal love lyric “I want to take a ride on your disco stick.”

8) Go through your iPhone/BlackBerry address book and let your eyes linger on each name, remembering how you were treated and how you treated others, and promise yourself it’s going to be different this time. If you’re feeling benevolent and find worthy candidates, recycle people by matching them with each other based on things they have in common. If you’re not feeling benevolent, don’t bother…

9) Go old school: Wear white and frolic in the fields, waiting for a special someone to come along and fall in love with you. Make sure it’s your field, though. Because otherwise it’s just called trespassing. And bring some Shout wipes. Because grass stains like a bitch.

10) YOUR IDEAS HERE.

Happy Tu B’Av, everyone. And please, as always, love responsibly.

Happy Tu B’Av: Jewish Holiday of Love (If You’re Lucky)

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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!

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