Just inside the ornate glass doors stands a cluster of modestly dressed young women, not too overtly scanning the crowd.
The objects of their attentions are sitting restlessly in the lobby, periodically getting up to pace the floor. Each side is looking for the prearranged clue — a gold necklace, a forest green tie — that’ll identify their partner.
One by one pairs form. Each man leads a woman to a corner where they’ll spend the next hour, maybe two. Both hope that the person sitting across from them just might be the one.
It’s the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Central Jerusalem and these young men and women are engaged in “shidduch dating,” a system of matchmaking used by religious Jews, from the liberal Modern Orthodox to the ultra-Orthodox Haredim.
Tourists sharing the lobby stare openly at the daters. There’s something about the shidduch date process — the constrained romance, perhaps — that piques curiosity, even envy.
A friend of mine recently wondered why she couldn’t just “outsource her love life to a shadchan” — a Jewish matchmaker. Even though they’d been best friends for over a year, my yoga teacher’s first date with her now-husband was a “shidduch-style” meeting at the King David Hotel just down the road. While they weren’t fully part of the culture, they tapped into a process that evidently works for many.
The ultra-organized world of shidduch dating follows a strict set of practices to guide young people from the time they are deemed of age all the way through to the chuppah, the altar, Jerusalem matchmaker Sarah Dena Katz explained. That could be 18 for women and early 20s for men, although the ages vary according to custom and religiosity.
Additionally, especially in Haredi communities, parents take the lead in finding acceptable candidates for their children. They compose shidduch resumes and, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of college honors societies, compile lists of references to be contacted for further research by a prospective date’s parents.
Kippa or bald spot?
Jenna Bazelon, 26, is the founder of FrumGirlProblems, a private Facebook group with over 9,500 members, all women. Sporting the tagline, “Is that a kippa? Oh, no… just a bald spot,” the group spun from Bazelon’s desire to enjoy the process of shidduch dating by finding the humor in it with like-minded young women.
She recalled that one time, a potential date called her directly without any pre-vetting or involvement of an intermediary. Confused, Bazelon asked if he was calling her as a reference for someone else. “No,” he said, “for you. I was just looking through a stack of resumes and I saw yours. It looked interesting and I thought I would give you a call.”
“What?” Bazelon said she asked the man. “’Why did you think that you could just give me a call?’ It was so out of the blue, so inappropriate.”
Naturally, he did not get a date. Like the Passover Seder, there’s an order to things, and it’s best to stick to it for positive results.
Once the resumes have been read, the references have been called, and both parties and parents have agreed to the match, a time and location are set and the preparation can begin. For many, the first date is also the first interaction with a member of the opposite sex outside of their family. The shadchan preps the novices on the intricacies of having a conversation, ordering off a menu, and tipping.
by Tracy Frydberg, The Times of Israel | Read more:
Image: Nati Shohat/Flash90
The objects of their attentions are sitting restlessly in the lobby, periodically getting up to pace the floor. Each side is looking for the prearranged clue — a gold necklace, a forest green tie — that’ll identify their partner.
One by one pairs form. Each man leads a woman to a corner where they’ll spend the next hour, maybe two. Both hope that the person sitting across from them just might be the one.
It’s the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Central Jerusalem and these young men and women are engaged in “shidduch dating,” a system of matchmaking used by religious Jews, from the liberal Modern Orthodox to the ultra-Orthodox Haredim.Tourists sharing the lobby stare openly at the daters. There’s something about the shidduch date process — the constrained romance, perhaps — that piques curiosity, even envy.
A friend of mine recently wondered why she couldn’t just “outsource her love life to a shadchan” — a Jewish matchmaker. Even though they’d been best friends for over a year, my yoga teacher’s first date with her now-husband was a “shidduch-style” meeting at the King David Hotel just down the road. While they weren’t fully part of the culture, they tapped into a process that evidently works for many.
The ultra-organized world of shidduch dating follows a strict set of practices to guide young people from the time they are deemed of age all the way through to the chuppah, the altar, Jerusalem matchmaker Sarah Dena Katz explained. That could be 18 for women and early 20s for men, although the ages vary according to custom and religiosity.
Additionally, especially in Haredi communities, parents take the lead in finding acceptable candidates for their children. They compose shidduch resumes and, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of college honors societies, compile lists of references to be contacted for further research by a prospective date’s parents.
Kippa or bald spot?
Jenna Bazelon, 26, is the founder of FrumGirlProblems, a private Facebook group with over 9,500 members, all women. Sporting the tagline, “Is that a kippa? Oh, no… just a bald spot,” the group spun from Bazelon’s desire to enjoy the process of shidduch dating by finding the humor in it with like-minded young women.
She recalled that one time, a potential date called her directly without any pre-vetting or involvement of an intermediary. Confused, Bazelon asked if he was calling her as a reference for someone else. “No,” he said, “for you. I was just looking through a stack of resumes and I saw yours. It looked interesting and I thought I would give you a call.”
“What?” Bazelon said she asked the man. “’Why did you think that you could just give me a call?’ It was so out of the blue, so inappropriate.”
Naturally, he did not get a date. Like the Passover Seder, there’s an order to things, and it’s best to stick to it for positive results.
Once the resumes have been read, the references have been called, and both parties and parents have agreed to the match, a time and location are set and the preparation can begin. For many, the first date is also the first interaction with a member of the opposite sex outside of their family. The shadchan preps the novices on the intricacies of having a conversation, ordering off a menu, and tipping.
by Tracy Frydberg, The Times of Israel | Read more:
Image: Nati Shohat/Flash90
