Anyway, even though we started ‘The Weekly Jewce’ last week, we’re already expanding and building a nice community here! So, starting Friday, ‘The Jewce’ will include an advice column written by the one-and-only Arielle Kaplan, whose writing you will often find on Jewcy.com.

Dating as Jews is hard, and no one really talks about it, so we decided to. Here at ‘Jewcy’, we are committed to creating a space where you can tell us your problems, and we make them worse. Kidding! We can only go up from here, right? Without further ado, meet your new—as she calls herself—Yenta-Jewish-Dating-Prophetess. I hope you’re as excited as I am.

Isaac, Editor of Jewcy.com

Hey Bubbela,

It’s me, Arielle, your local Jewess yenta prophetess. Are you underwhelmed by the Jewish dating scene? Do you feel like an orange and/or green M&M, anxious and undershtupped? Well, If you’re reading this, it’s not too late. I’ve been enlisted to help the Children of Zion fulfill daddy god’s number one request — “Be fruitful and multiply!”

What makes me, a lonely and horny Jew, qualified to help you navigate your life and be a light amongst the nations? Not to brag, but from surviving barrages of online Jew-hatred and French kissing IDF soldiers to my tenure on Jswipe and the Lox Club, I’ve cashed in more than enough mitzvah points to transform you from a shande fur die goyim to Good for the Jews.

So, my desperate little M&Ms, how can you reach me for dating and general life advice? Send your questions to heybubbela@gmail.com. And don’t fret or hold back, I’ll always preserve my bubbela’s anonymity.

xx,
Arielle

The post A Dating Advice Column for Sexy Jews Who Schmooze appeared first on Jewcy.

Forty weeks later, Tzvia—named after my ex’s deceased radiologist father—was born. She was round and brown with a feathery layer of lanugo; she looked frighteningly like my father. We assumed that our daughter would be ugly and smart. But within several weeks, it became clear that she was not ugly—she was, in fact, cherubic, with a rosebud mouth and brown doe-like eyes. By the time she hit age five, we discovered that while Tzvia was animated and clever and funny and popular amongst her kindergarten classmates, academics weren’t exactly her thing. And so, whenever anybody asked why we were throwing our daughter a bat mitzvah at our local Chabad, where, per ultra-Orthodox Judaism, she was forbidden from leyning Torah —which, to be honest, is a pretty annoying question: “I don’t know, why are you having your daughter’s bat mitzvah at the Brentwood Country Club with a lobster buffet?”—I’d make a joke about the fact that we still weren’t certain if she could read. (For the record, she can, and very well; she’d just rather spend her time watching TikTok videos of teens shoplifting at Urban Outfitters.) 

Truth is, Chabad can be a wonderful place in which to have a child’s bar or bat mitzvah. Especially if you’re divorced and single and mired in student debt from your gazillion post-graduate degrees and can’t afford a five-star hotel with an infinity pool and flood lights and day players from the Pantages Theatre production of Hamilton. Even if I could swing all those things, I generally loathe b’nai mitzvahs resembling A-list Hollywood premieres. They’re tacky and gauche, and I say this as a jaded entertainment journalist that has attended way too many premieres to count. Chabad is haimish and warm. They’re also great with special needs children, which is why we chose to have our autistic son’s bar mitzvah there two years earlier.  

But now things were different. My ex and I were officially divorced, as opposed to being legally separated when our son Sam became a man, and this time around my ex-husband was bringing his on-and-off-and-on-again blonde, Princeton-grad, gentile girlfriend—let’s call her Polly—to our daughter’s Saturday night bat mitzvah soiree. 

I pitched a tsunami-sized fit about Polly coming for weeks. It wasn’t appropriate, it was way too soon, it would distract from a rite of passage meant to be special and meaningful and focused on family, even if ours had imploded into radioactive dust. I’d never even met this Polly person—and nor did I want to. I complained about it endlessly—to my friends, to my therapist, to the yeshiva bachor working the evening shift at the Western Kosher deli counter. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t even have a dress. Nothing fit, everything was wrong, my bangs still hadn’t grown out from the night I cut them during COVID lockdown. This bat mitzvah would be a disaster. 

When it came to bat mitzvah planning—and pretty much everything else in life—my ex and I were rarely on the same page. He pretended to be on board with keeping a kosher home, but later revealed he resented it. He argued with every kosher caterer in town, fighting fruitlessly over everything from their available start-time (“Shabbat ends at 7, so by the time we drive there we’ll be serving food around ten”) to the cost of the customized candy table. A week before the event, the Israeli hot truck we booked vanished on us, another catering company with whom we thought we had confirmed said they never got my ex’s credit card information, and my ex sent me the following text: “I am revoking my Jew card.” 

Miraculously, Tzvia’s kabbalat shabbat bat mitzvah service went off without a hitch. She recited the Rebbe’s 12 Pesukim, the kosher chicken didn’t exactly taste like cardboard, and Tzvia’s entire Camp Ramah bunk arrived wearing sparkly dresses and a congratulatory speech they’d collectively penned on pink notebook paper. By the time dessert was served, I’d knocked back three shots of Belvedere. And while I wasn’t excited about the prospect of my ex bringing Princeton Polly to the following night’s fête, I was self-medicated to the point of reason: If Bridget Moynahan could survive Gisele, I could easily weather a twice-divorced 50-year-old without children of her own. 

This is where Josh comes in. Josh was a guy I friended one night on Facebook when I was home and alone and bored. Josh was from Minneapolis and we had seven mutual friends in common, including a girl from St. Louis Park with whom I’d studied at Hebrew U. during my junior year abroad. According to his Facebook profile, Josh studied computer science at Dartmouth and held a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School and worked in the technology sector in executive positions I failed to comprehend because I’d studied Shakespeare at Cornell and was left-brained to the point of being a dysfunctional everyday idiot. Josh readily confirmed my virtual friendship request: “Have we met before?” he messaged. We had not, but Josh had read a piece I’d written on Boston accents for Variety and that was more of a real-life connection than most people in the online world. By week’s end we were lunching at Dan Tana and Josh was asking me to come work for him. I repeatedly told him no, mostly because I understood 3% of whatever it was he was talking about—something about content, creative, SEO— but also because Josh looked like the love child born of Owen Wilson and Robert Redford circa The Way We Were. Josh’s eyes were the color of a swimming pool. At a certain angle, he had Gene Wilder’s nose. Going to work for a six-foot-tall Minnesotan Jew with two Ivy League degrees and who resembled a 1970’s movie star would have been a fool’s errand. Josh was also wading through the emotional morass of his own post-divorce hell. The second time we hung out—Doordash pizza and bong hits in his single-story bungalow wedged into the hills of Laurel Canyon—Josh slumped on the sofa and sobbed. “I need a friend,” Josh wept. He didn’t ask me to work for him, and I cradled him the way a child might a parent. People make a big deal about how many men you’ve slept with but you would not believe the number of Jewish men’s chests upon which I’ve laid my head. Looking for a pillow, looking for a home. 

“You wanna come to my kid’s bat mitzvah party Saturday night?” 

Josh showed up an hour early wearing a navy plaid sports jacket and a pink-striped button-down with his initials monogrammed on the cuffs. A silk yarmulke functioned as a de facto pocket square. Designer shoes from France, hair a tumbling crest of dishwater blond. A man—a Josh—plucked straight from central casting. (My look was courtesy of Anthropologie, from the label’s unofficial secret Tznius line.)  Josh tied my son’s tie, I zipped up Tzvia’s pale pink pouf dress, and we drove—top-down, wind whipping through our hair—in Josh’s Range Rover Evoque convertible through the Saturday night streets of Highland Park. Josh drove like he was on the Autobahn. With a perfunctory flourish, he fished the yarmulke from his pocket and brandished it in the air with the manic fervor of a rodeo star. Sam squealed with freakish delight. Tzvia, her Drybar braids unraveling around her wind-smacked face, screamed wildly from the backseat: “Hurry! I’m going to be late for my own bat mitzvah!” 

We arrived at Chabad just as everyone we’d hired to put this thing together the moment Shabbat ended (for a party that started 30 minutes later) raced around the parking lot stringing up tea lights and Japanese lanterns and blowing up gold and hot pink Mylar balloons. My ex was sweating, sleeves rolled up, barking orders at the waitstaff like Martin Short in Father of the Bride. It was hard to ignore Josh, who was dressed better than anybody else in attendance and had way better hair. My ex immediately put Josh to work, kicking over a box of as-yet-unassembled LED centerpiece lights with Tzvia’s initials carved out of acrylic and a lightning bolt running down the middle and a battery-operated base connected to a tiny remote control one could use to switch the colors from neon pink to fluorescent green. 

Meanwhile, Tazvia was tantruming over the mechitza on the rented black-and-white-checkered dance floor. “None of my friends had to have one at their bat mitzvahs!” she whined, her girlfriends gathered around her in protest solidarity like the tween version of Sex and the City. I called in our Rabbi for reinforcement, we explained that it needed to stay and while the rabbi made his way to the buffet of kosher Mexican fare, thus began an impromptu game of musical mechitza, with Tzvia pushing the mechitza off the dance floor, Sam pushing it back on, Tzvia pushing it off. And so on. At a certain point I’m assuming the rabbi just pretended not to notice, sitting in the tented dining area eating tacos and refried beans while tapping his feet to the beat of the instrumental trio playing an acoustic version of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.” 

I was three margaritas into this thing when my ex started chasing me around begging me to say hello to his girlfriend, whom by this point I’d honestly forgotten about. Every time I turned around Josh was there, as if on cue. There was not a single moment in which I mistook Josh’s impeccable party etiquette for anything but reflexive, a product of polite Midwestern youth ferried into adulthood. Josh had two younger sisters, and he’d taken mental notes. Even so, Josh was a sight to behold. He knew nobody at this party, he barely knew me, and yet he circled the crowd with the charismatic ease of a young Bobby Kennedy. And I ran around like Zelda Fitzgerald, a dunk social butterfly in an ebullient haze of tequila shots on ice. At one point, the rabbi and I did l’chaims, and I promised I’d connect him to Robert Kraft—whom I’d met once at a fundraising gala several years prior— in the hopes he’d fund the new mikveh. 

Finally, after four hours of havdalah, hora and kids racing around in customized airbrush apparel courtesy of a t-shirt booth we’d hired, my ex yanked me aside: “Can you please just say hello to my girlfriend? She really wants to meet you.” Instinctively, I dragged Josh along. “This is Josh,” I told Princeton Polly. “He’s hot, he’s got a law degree from Columbia and he’s a Jew from Minnesota.” 

I have zero recollection of Polly’s response. I do remember yawning. 

The night drew to a close and Josh drove us home. 

“Did you have fun?” I asked Tzvia. 

 She nodded, smiled and ripped through a stack of presents: “It was the best night of my life.” 

That next morning, the phone rang. It was our rabbi. 

“Hi, Malina. Thank you for such a great party. I’m reminding you to connect me with Robert Kraft.”

Portions of this article were edited out at the request of the author.

Peak Jewish Divorcee is a bi-weekly column charting the (mis)adventures of a Jewish, newly single working mom in Los Angeles. 

The post My Rent-A-Bat-Mitzvah-Party Boyfriend appeared first on Jewcy.

That late October night, I was seated across from Shai, an Israeli immigrant in the construction business and formerly of the diamond business with whom I’d matched on JSwipe (as one does under collective Jewish-community coercion). Eleven months had gone by since my husband and I decided to divorce, seven since he had moved out of our home, and I hadn’t been with anyone. Like most people who read hardcover books and were ruined forever by 1970s French cinema, I thought dating apps were the least romantic approach to meeting one’s potential soulmate, an online catalogue of flat, two-dimensional profiles that rarely made the leap into real life. Still, it had been eleven months. 

A magazine editor, I penned a tight four-line paragraph under a photo of me with ample bosom and my dog, noting I’d penned a term paper at Cornell on the symbolism of hair in Hemingway novels. Surely, this would attract charismatic neurosurgeons from Cedars-Sinai and award-winning authors adapting their books for Hollywood. Within seconds of posting said profile—Just Jewish, Kosher, Liberal—Shai appeared, Facetiming me from the parking lot of Lowe’s, where he’d gone to buy drywall and caulk for a client’s garage in Reseda. He was eager to discuss Hemingway, though admitted he’d never read A Farewell to Arms—or The Sun Also Rises or For Whom The Bell Tolls or any of the short stories—but he had read The Old Man in the Sea in seventh grade, in Hebrew. “I learned it for school,” Shai said. “I think we have a lot in common. We are both Ashkenzim. You will not find anyone else. When do you not have your kids?” 

He mostly spoke in Hebrew and I mostly answered in English, because I lived in Israel for a time but my accent makes me sound like a dumb American tourist. “That sushi was overpriced,” he said when the check came. “Next time I’ll make pita and labne.” 

But Shai had eyes the color of my favorite beach in Caesarea. He reminded me of a taller, fatter Lior Raz in Fauda, even if Shai’s ranking in the Israeli army involved performing clerical duties in a dusty office because he was diagnosed with asthma. We went home that night and fell into bed and I sobbed afterwards because that was the first time I’d been with anyone else save my soon-to-be ex-husband in over 14 years. But Shai was sweet about it and told me I would get the hang of post-divorce sex and we met two days later at his beige Calabasas home, sparsely furnished and scrubbed cleaner than a picnic cooler with a transplant organ. He showed me his yard, his lemon tree and the cotton sheets he’d ordered from China in bulk. He pointed to photos of his three “perfect” boys, gushed about them endlessly and offered to help me sell my engagement ring to a guy he knew downtown. “If you use a dish, load it into the dishwasher,” he instructed. 

For the first several months, our date nights consisted of him mopping my kitchen floor, folding my laundry and watching Israeli sitcoms on the cable channel he didn’t pay for but was able to pick up by way of a neighbor’s Internet signal. He’d pack me Tupperware containers of homemade schnitzel and arrive at my house with various household appliances from Big Lots: cell phone chargers, laundry baskets, a battery-operated kettle. He installed outdoor lights in my small, fenced-in yard and appeared one evening with an olive oil dispenser “for smaller portions to avoid becoming fat.” He advised me to cut my kosher chicken breasts in half and freeze the unused portions. Shai was stocking up on masks long before the coronavirus pandemic virus reared its ugly head. 

Shai’s pragmatism knew no bounds. He was practical in a way that left me awestruck in its radical acceptance of what we could control in the world—and that basically included dish soap and bathroom tile. If there was a chair pulled out from the table, Shai’s entire world would implode. He would spend hours sweeping the living room floor. 

On Shai’s JSwipe profile, he had written that he was “romantic,” but one night, while vacuuming a single crumb off his bedroom floor, he informed me that he did not have feelings.  “I am dafuq,” he said, the Hebrew word for “screwed up in the head.” He would never move in with anyone again, would never marry again, never merge financial assets. He assured me that I would not either, that any potential of that happening was delusion. Not just for him and me, but for every divorced person with children. “That’s for people in their 20’s,” he would say. The things divorced people needed, he said: “Sex.” 

For Shai, women provided a service, that of fulfilling his unflagging carnal needs. He was selfish in bed, demanding multiple showers—before, after and during. While not terrifically well-endowed, Shai was obsessed with his phallic member—and phalluses in general. Convinced I was obsessed with them too, he texted gifs ranging from pornstar orgies to an animated caveman with a swinging giant penis. 

By that point in time, I’d come to terms with the fact that dating in the age of divorce is like a white elephant table of toxic exes: I’ll trade you my emotionally-abusive recovering alcoholic for one emotionally stunted contractor with a paralytic case of OCD and the emotional maturity of a 12 year-old boy. Bidding starts at $5. 

On the other hand, Shai was wickedly funny and keenly observant. He was right about the things he said about me 72% of the time. My dog fell madly in love with him. “Kalba!” he would call. And my dog would come running. 

Shai was also an attentive and doting father, loving his children the way he could not anybody else. He commanded their attention, and they filed into line. But there was joy in their doing—they gardened, made their beds, cooked their own breakfast. They were the most well-mannered children that I have ever encountered. “I raised them like they are in the army,” Shai said proudly. On alternate weekends, when my kids were with their father, I was with Shai’s. Occasionally, we’d all hang out together, the contrast between his three young boys and my teenage son and tween-age daughter like the Exxon Valdez oil spill darkening the Prince William Sound. 

One particular Sunday, my 14 year-old cracked open Shai’s freezer and helped himself to a popsicle. He had not asked, and Shai had not seen. But when Shai discovered a trail of cherry-red popsicle juice stretching from the kitchen to his bedroom and erupted into a fiery panic, I knew we were nearing the end.  

We kept things going for several more weeks, until one fateful day roughly eight months after we’d met. Shai had gone to work, and I had spent the day in his living room, where he had invited me to work on my then in-progress novel. I’d managed to write a few decent pages, had taken great pains to rinse out the glasses I’d used for iced tea, and locked the back gate as instructed. But when Shai returned home, he noticed the one thing he had asked me to do that I had forgotten: run the dishwasher. 

Shai sighed as if someone had died. “We are not a match,” he said. “We will not be together. But we can still have sex. If you want. Just no feelings.”  

I did not want. Shai was back on JSwipe that same afternoon. 

We kept in touch, which is easier to do when you were never right for one another in the first place. We called one another on Jewish holidays, he gave me a referral for a cleaning lady, sent me videos of his boys telling jokes. One day, when I was bored and alone and on the sofa watching CNN, I texted Shai and asked him, “Did you ever really read The Old Man in the Sea?” 

“Yes,” Shai answered, in bed with his latest girlfriend. “He struggles with the fish.”

Peak Jewish Divorcee is a bi-weekly column charting the (mis)adventures of a Jewish, newly single working mom in Los Angeles. 

The post My Big Fat Israeli appeared first on Jewcy.

I have reached a point where I call myself a proud loxist. “Loxism” was coined by antisemites in 2005, but was recently re-popularized on 4chan or 8chan, or whatever ‘chan’ they use to blame Jews for not getting laid. Its originally intended meaning is the belief that Jews think of themselves as superior to others and hate non-Jewish people, specifically white people. So, according to conspiracy theories Jews thus bring upon the decline of the white race through things like ‘low birth rates for white couples’, ‘porn’, and my personal favorite ‘the church of satan’. 

Anyway, some Jews have begun reclaiming the term to mean dating fellow Jews. Now it’s how I describe my my quest to find a Jewish partner. To clarify, I do not believe we’re superior to anyone, and the idea of a church of satan is a bit concerning because first of all church, and second of all satan? That would definitely be avoda zarah.

So, with more than a hundred dates below my belt and even more therapy sessions, I am here to pour my heart out with past, present, and hopefully future dating stories to all the others who are also asking themselves where all the Nice Jewish Boys have gone.

I was born and raised in a Jewish community in Europe and before moving to New York, I lived in Tel Aviv for a bit, where my sister has been living for the better part of the last decade. I moved to the city four years ago and almost immediately started dating. A lot of those initial dates were, admittedly, ego-boosters and external validation. However, throughout the years and the good, bad, and antizionist dates, I got to know the Jewish dating scene (disclaimer: not the Hasidic one) too well for my liking. 

A city with over a million Jews? Finding a boyfriend should be a piece of cake. Turns out it is more challenging than finding desserts without kitniyot during Pesach in Israel. While some of those failed dates and relationships were undoubtedly my fault, a thorough retrospection and analysis of all the Jakes and Joshs and Davids, showed that something was up with dating Jewishly in NYC. The nice ones were too boring for me, the mean ones too condescending, and then you had the occasional jew with so much internalized antisemitism it made my IBS act up, and my ancestors turn over in their graves.

These dates, which were mostly just not a good match for me and at times just bad matches for anyone, taught me many things and made me face the challenges of dating in the 21st century in the age of the apps and (((the apps))).

At the same time, some of the challenges of dating Jewishly remain the same: Will my friends like them? My mom? Is he the right level of religious? We know everything more observant than us is a meshuggene and anything less is a goy. But there has definitely been some change over the past decade, and maybe even more specifically since we started treating every date as a potential near-death experience and not just because of our crippling anxiety.

Yes, most of those things are uncomfortable to discuss. I had to explain ‘ghosting’ to my therapist, and my mom has no advice on dealing with guys ‘breadcrumbing’ me on social media but the awkwardness and newness don’t make these things any less challenging or relevant. 

Dating has changed, for better or worse, and similarly, the advice we give and take has to adjust accordingly. Getting set up by a lovely lady from shul doesn’t work anymore because her grandson will tell her he wants to have a serious relationship and then ask you for a threesome on the first date.

I do not have the answers to all dating problems; if I did, I would probably not be writing this or looking up the definitions of my dating phenomena on Urban Dictionary. I do have some of the answers and a solid drive for research, and a passion for collecting dating and relationship books to find the rest.

Hopefully, we’ll get to the bottom of how to date Jewishly (successfully) in the city.

Lots of Lox,

D.

‘Lox and the City’ is a bi-weekly column detailing the trials and tribulations of dating Jewishly as 20-something-year-old woman in New York.

The post From the Shtetl to the City appeared first on Jewcy.

Fans of The Bachelorette and hunky Jews may remember Grant Hubsher from last season, the (now) 30 year old ER doctor— Florida bred, New York-based. Day School. Hillel. The whole package. Since he didn’t win on the TV show last year, he’s still single, and now he’s using his eligibility for a good cause.

One woman (sorry, guys) is going to win a date with Hubsher, in a contest designed to draw attention to a Jewish health organization.

“Nice Jewish doctor?,” says Hubsher, in the video announcing the contest, “Mom’s gonna love this!”

The non-profit he’s promoting is JScreen— an initiative based out of Emory University that provides genetic testing services, particularly for Jewish couples looking to one day conceive. (As a doctor, Hubsher says he’s all too familiar with the damage genetic diseases can cause.)

JScreen’s test can be completed at home (no needles needed!), and a professional will inform couples in a follow-up video chat if they are carriers for any detrimental genetic diseases, and the odds of their future children having said conditions. Once couples know the potential risks of reproducing, they can be better equipped to family-plan.

(Isn’t that the most Jewish alternative to the Bachelor franchise? Win a date with a handsome guy, make sure neither of you carry Tay-Sachs?)

Entering the contest is simple— all you need to do is provide basic information, and answer the question “Why should you be selected to date Grant?” (And please, tweet @jewcymag and let us know what you said; we really, really want to know.) You have until June 1st to enter. (Once again, you can enter here.)

It’s going to be a really nice date—dinner the kosher Wolf & Lamb Steakhouse in Manhattan. Hubsher is only committing to one date for now, but if things go well, he’s open to more.

“Who knows,” said Hubsher in a statement, “Maybe this contest will help me finally find the woman to share my life with.”

Now that’s a meet-cute.

Photo by Cher Gopman

The post Win a Date with Grant Hubsher! appeared first on Jewcy.

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.

I’m not impressed, folks. I have been on this app for less than 12 hours and already I have a LOT of advice for you, dudes. And I’m not even talking about the shirtless pics. Because everyone’s probably already told you to stop that. No disrespect meant to your hot Israeli IDF bod — it is quite spiffy, but JSwipe isn’t really Grindr.

Here are some other things you should really not be doing:

1. No bio.

I mean, come on. Even if your pics are hot as hell, if I have no clue who you are, bye. This is basically 80-90% of profiles I’ve seen.

2. A bio that just says “I hate bios” or “there’s too much about me to fit into a bio.”

Oy, aren’t you special. Newsflash: we all hate condensing ourselves into a tiny pinprick but hello, if I can be bothered to put in the effort, so can you. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it. And yeah, I would hope there’s more to you than can fit in a bio, but if you can’t even come up with enough info or personality to fill half a phone screen, things are not looking great for the rest of you.

3. A bio of only emojis.

Wow. Much impress. “That menorah emoji really speaks to my soul,” said no one ever.

4. One word bios.

“Hi.” “Adventure.” “.רְצִינִי” “CPA.” “NJB [Nice Jewish Boy].” “INFP.” If you’re going to use one word, it had better be something that represents you, and if these are the most interesting things you can say about yourself, that does not bode well.

(Fun fact: The Most Interesting Man in the World is Jewish. Up your game.)

5. Bios that say, “I’m new at this!” and nothing else.

Well, guess what, boychik – so am I, and I’m already way better at it than you.

6. Bios that place a weird emphasis on your height.

Like either it’s the only thing in the bio, or one of less than 5 characteristics you’ve listed. I get that we are a people populated by men of small stature, so you feel special if you’re 6 feet tall, but again, if your height is the most interesting thing about you, you need some more hobbies. (I don’t care at all about height so personally any bio with height listed makes me roll my eyes.)

7. Bios that tell me you have a sense of humor but back it up with nothing.

Just because comedy and sarcasm is seemingly hardwired into our ancient culture and our less ancient celebrity icons, does not mean that you are automatically gifted with it. I too can claim to have a sense of humor. I included examples of it in my bio. Did you?

8. Bios that include one sentence about you and then a trite inspirational quote.

Great, I can have a date with my shul’s wall calendar that has as much to say as you do.

9. Bios where your primary interest is traveling.

Look, traveling is great. I’ve done it. I too have pictures of myself surrounded by Jerusalem stone and silhouetted against the Western Wall! Imagine that. But I want to know what makes you interesting aside from the places you can afford to visit. I want to know that if we’re stuck at home, you have enough conversation skills that I won’t be bored to tears. Travel is not a substitute for personality.

10. Bios that start in on what “most girls” like or want and how you’re different and special and shouldn’t be judged by the standards “most girls” use.

Just stop. Your bio is a space to tell me about you, not about all your past failures with women and your subsequent bitterness and Nice Guy Syndrome, you schmuck.

Sarah Meira (SM) Rosenberg is a jill-of-all-trades, including but not limited to: publicist for the bestselling Unofficial Hogwarts Haggadah, co-host of the Nice Jewish Fangirls podcast, freelance editor, former teen novelist, and retired auto mechanic. If you need stuff done, try her.

The post 10 Jswipe No-No’s from a Newbie appeared first on Jewcy.

Doesn’t it feel like speed dating has plagued the single scene forever? You sit down across from a potential partner, you get a tiny amount of time to talk, and boom! You’re on to the next one. There are advantages, like, if someone is terrible, you don’t need to pretend that your roommate texted you with an emergency to get out of the date early. Then there are disadvantages, like the fact that you may have to deal with dozens of jerks in one evening instead of just one.

Well, good or bad, you may not realize that speed dating is a Jewish invention. A very Jewish one. And it’s more recent an invention than you might think.

The year: 1998.

The place: Beverly Hills, home of Cher Horowitz, the sixth Real Housewives series, and one very important Peet’s Coffee & Tea.

Our hero: Rabbi Yaacov Deyo. Rabbi Deyo works for Aish HaTorah, a Jewish educational and kiruv organization you may remember for its web series in which a pre-Fresh off Boat  Randall Park plays a secular Jew finding his heritage through his grandpa, played by Elliott Gould (no, really. It’s 100% real).

But for this fateful event, Deyo and his cohorts are trying something new, something game show-like given the Hollywood locale. So they try a fast-paced evening where single Jews can meet as many members of the opposite sex as possible. The signal to change partners is even a gragger. It’s a hit, and within a year, it’s grown far outside the Jewish community.

Deyo quickly trademarked SpeedDating, but was never able to patent the idea, which had already spread too widely. “It was,” he told the New York Times in 2013, “just another case of rabbi meets the commercial-industrial complex.” He did, however, manage to publish a book on the subject with his wife, Sue.

So, yes, like bagels and the word schlep, the Jewish people just continue to give and give to the general American population.

Whether or not you’re a fan, without Deyo and Aish, we wouldn’t have speed dating scenes in so many comedies. Here are only a few— enjoy (or not, depending on the clip):

Photo by Linh Do via Flickr.

The post Jews Invented Speed Dating appeared first on Jewcy.

https://twitter.com/ericandre/status/831627633309802496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Since he’s known for comedy shenanigans, (like freaking out in a McDonald’s dressed as Ronald the clown,) Andre has had to insist, multiple times, that this relationship is 100% real. Better safe than sorry— we wouldn’t want a repeat of the Jon Lovitz fiasco. Andre even had to tweet at Chance the Rapper, of all people, that it’s #notaprank.

Between this and her dyed-in-the-wool support for Bernie Sanders, Dawson may have a thing for Jewish guys (though she is a BDS supporter, so the couple may not be planning a trip to Israel any time soon).

If you want to see Andre’s latest comedy work, he’s been posting online a spinoff of sorts of his self-titled TV Show interviewing social media celebs on a super uncomfortable show he calls “Hot Babes of Instagram.” Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCaaUhdTXW8

The post Eric Andre and Rosario Dawson are Somehow Dating appeared first on Jewcy.

My name is “Chriss,” as in, Chris(t). My name has proved to be a blinking neon sign indicating to all in the Jewish world that I am the odd girl out. The first question is “are you Jewish?” and the second is “how?” Funny, that wasn’t my first question to you.

I came to Judaism knowing nothing… except for Anne Frank, I knew who she was. I had also read a few books by Chaim Potok, though I pronounced his first name like “chain” with an “m.”  Yom Kippur-the tiny printed words on every calendar was just an obscure Irish holiday (imagine my surprise…).

I grew up in a homogenous small mountain town in Northern California where everyone was from a Christian background. The primary faiths represented were Mormons, small evangelical groups or Protestants, like my family. I didn’t knowingly meet somebody that was of another faith (like Judaism) until freshman year of college.

I moved to New York City at age 22, and several years later I dated a Member of the Tribe. Friday night dinners with his observant parents, fasting during Yom Kippur and eating cheesecake all night once a year. It seemed awesome but everything was one big Hebraic blur. So, I enrolled in a “Judaism 101” course at a synagogue in Park Slope. They were egalitarian, friendly, engaging, and progressive in their views— everything I was looking for in an “organized religion.”  I asked a lot of questions throughout the course and when it ended after 6 months, I knew that I wanted to start the official conversion process (despite the end of my romantic relationship as well).

The first thing my Rabbi said to me was “just so you are fully aware- a Reform Judaism conversion is a bit controversial among the Jewish community.” I shrugged it off. A Jew is a Jew.

It took 2 years of studying, meeting with my Rabbi and observing various traditions, like keeping Kosher and Shabbat. As my Reform synagogue didn’t have much of a thriving social scene, my best friend showed me the social landscape of the Modern Orthodox in Manhattan. I was excited as well as a bit intimidated. Soon I started to feel that I was ready to be a full-fledged member of the tribe.

In May of 2014 I nervously met with a Beit Din who officially “approved” me and immersed myself in the warm waters of a mikvah on the Upper West Side. Outside the mikveh door stood my Rabbi, brother, and two good friends.  I was a Jew and I shouted this (literally!) through the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn that day.

Prior to Judaism I connected with potential dating partners solely on good vibes, mutual interests, etc.  Religion played virtually no part in it.  Now that I am not a “shiksa” it is of the utmost importance. I want to have a traditional Jewish family with a smart, funny good-looking man who embraces his faith and culture, finds meaning in tradition, loves Israel and is progressive thinking.  Should be easy in New York. Right? Wrong.

I didn’t understand how my “type” of conversion would come into play in the Jewish dating world. First, as a convert I have to cross off all men with the last name of “Cohen.” I learned this after a man at shul said he’d love to date me but he was part of the Kohanim and as a convert I am forbidden fruit. The Ultra Orthodox, Haredim and most-any sect of Orthodoxy automatically discredit my conversion entirely. The hypothetical children I might produce down the road may be an issue for Reform or Conservative Jews as our offspring’s “Jewishness” maybe called into question. So that leaves me with secular Jews. So much for the dream.

Most men aren’t worried about my level of observance or thoughts on the religious front.  My “worthiness” is contingent on being the “right kind of Jewish.” Their verdict is usually asserted loudly and rudely after a few drinks. Apparently a traveling rogue Beit Din.

On a first date with a cute guy I had met at a costume party called “Challahween,” I learned he had grown up in a very religious family and was impressed that I had converted. His enthusiasm quickly faded when he learned one of the Rabbis I studied under was a woman. Huh? This is 2016.  Aren’t we passed the antiquated notion that only men can be accepted as rabbinical figures?  Not to mention that nowhere in the Torah does it forbid it. We disagreed and still made out. Regrets in feminism.

Recently I introduced myself to the host of a house party (where 99% of attendees were Jewish). He loudly exclaimed that now he knew “who the goy” was. He didn’t know it that the next day marked my 2^nd anniversary of going to the mikvah. I looked at my best friend sitting across from me. She was bracing herself for one of my long, bitter, tearful diatribes. Instead I simply said “I AM A JEW.” He didn’t understand his words pushed an atomic bomb like button inside of me. I spent the next hour singing my feelings out on his karaoke machine.

Last week “Sammy” on Jswipe asked for my phone number. I was delighted but as his profile mentioned having Jewish parents I decided to tell him upfront that my parents were not.  “Who and where did you convert through?” I knew where this conversation was going. I told him that I wasn’t Orthodox but I am Jewish. “I question your intentions when you go through conversion and don’t one hundred percent the life of a Jew with our culture. You are not a Jew.”

My intentions? Did he think I was some breed of religious terrorist? I I keep kosher, lived in Israel, observe Shabbat and chagim. He then called me a Christian… as a slur, and blocked me.

As my name often serves as a conversation “ice breaker”: I have thought by going solely by my Hebrew name (Miriam), but for 30-something years I’ve been Chriss. I don’t want to negate my family or the journey that brought me here for your convenience. There are Jews named Chriss. Here I am.

This past Shavout I heard a fellow convert say something very simple but powerful – we forget that despite our different backgrounds we once stood at Sinai together as one community. Maybe that was only a desert mirage.

Chriss Williams is currently finishing her degree in Religion at Hunter College. She created the blog “Shiksaism.com” which chronicles her adventures as a “Jew by Choice.” Chriss lives in Brooklyn and loves red wine, hookah, and dancing. Please swipe right. 

Images courtesy of Chriss Williams

The post Chriss the Jew; Dating as a Reform Convert appeared first on Jewcy.