Dating within a minority can be difficult—ask any Jew looking for a Jewish partner outside of Israel. So being another minority within such a small group can be really frustrating. It’s unclear how many LGBTQ Jews live in North America, but assuming they’re proportionate for the population, and keeping in mind that the numbers grow smaller as we adjust for preferences—gay women, for example, want to date other women, not gay men—the options can be limited.

Thankfully, a new website is here to fix all that. It’s called “Saw You At Stonewall,” and while its mission is to set up LGBTQ Jews, by doing so it also brings to light specific issues queer Jews face when straddling multiple worlds.

Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

The post New Dating Site Helps LGBTQ Jews Find Love, No Pictures Necessary appeared first on Jewcy.

In theory, sure, why not? If prefer to swipe right for another Jew, that’s your prerogative. But in an effort to reach out to diverse Jews, JSwipe’s publicity strategy falls into catering towards the lowest common denominator, which usually means a lot of jokes about matzah ball soup, unfortunate puns on the word “Jew,” and Seinfeld references.

But sometimes these awkward/annoying attempts to be hip bleed over into offensive. Take this recent  Facebook post:

It’s hardly worth explaining why this is offensive (to keep it brief: it’s an overly stereotyped image of a Mexican person on Cinco de Mayo, and also the joke is rooted in the idea of a Mexican Jew being incongruous when there are totally Jewish Mexicans).

But most of the offensive online content is rooted in sexism, because, well, it’s a dating app.  For example, JSwipe was recently the partner at a “#CrazyJewishMom” event, because there’s nothing funnier than an overbearing Jewish woman, am I right?

Or take a recent tweet, since deleted, that joked that you should marry a Jewish woman, since it would be the last decision you’d ever make.

(To be fair, I once heard a similar joke made by an officiant at a Jewish wedding. It wasn’t funny then either.)

If JSwipe is trying to make good-natured in-jokes about Jewishness, they’re missing the mark, and attacking the very women they want to be part of its clientele (and the app itself isn’t sexist). Rather than letting dating in the faith be what it is (complicated), JSwipe has to represent men there by coercion, women as nagging shrews,

Maybe it’s an effective strategy, but that doesn’t make it not stupid.

Nor is JSwipe the first Jewish dating program to be embarrassing.  JDate (which acquired ownership of JSwipe some months ago), has been using flimsy stereotypes as part of its marketing for ages.  Take this commercial from 2014:

(That blonde will never understand you, Jewish man, because the entirety of your identity can be summed up by a Jewish summer camp experience that all like-minded Jews know and love.)

All that pandering, and JDate can’t even spell “bashert” right in an ad:

Sounds like “sherbert…”

Also, guys, since you like Yiddish 101 catchphrases? Try “shandeh fur di goyim,” which means, non-Jews on the Internet can see you being awful when you’re claiming you represent young Jewish adults so stop embarrassing us.

Plus, you’re alienating young Jewish adults. You know, people you want to use your service?

@JSwipe using a damaging stereotype about jewish women to boost it’s popularity?! now that’s a shonda. #deletejswipe https://t.co/J9g1TNjfok

— Sandy Fox (@sandy__fox) May 18, 2016

So even if its service is fine, is the advertising such a turnoff that you should swipe left on JSwipe in its entirety?

Ah, well. JWed it is.

Image Credits: Facebook and Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein

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