Seeking Jewish Woman

Several weeks before I plunged into the online dating scene, I was the recipient of a fortune cookie. Inside, printed in blue letters on white paper read: "An agreeable romance might begin to take on the appearance."

Online dating, encouraged by a few friends; proposed by my therapist, was something I resisted. Such matchmaking, I believed, was beyond me. The technology was too foreign; the process too intangible; the methodology too alien. It is the scent of a woman that especially propels my attraction. Computers leave my olfactory reality lacking.

“Why not look at it like you would a science experiment?” inquired my therapist during a discussion about the possibility of my partaking in an online sexual chase. Her question prompted some self-inquiry: Could I step outside of myself sufficiently to create an online profile that would yield a Jewish woman suitable for marriage?


Twenty years before marriage became a state and federal issue (sure to be part of the “values” discussion presidential contenders Obama and McCain will no doubt tackle), I married my college-sweetheart. Though my eight year marriage imploded when I discovered she was having an affair with a male colleague, marriage remains a hope; a kind of social contract I wish upon myself.

My conversion from Catholicism to Judaism, formalized in December 2004 by immersing myself in a Manhattan mikveh, did more than make Judaism an official part of my soul, a non-negotiable part of my identity; it gave voice to an old-school Jewish value: “Don’t marry a goy.”

“It is said that there are two soul mates for every person, says Estee Stimler, a London-based shadchan (marriage broker) and author of: The Frum Rules: The Fun User-Friendly, Definitive Girl’s Guide to Shidduchim (matchmaking).

“And there is such a thing as making your own zivug (match) — you can make someone your soul mate.”

Estee, mother of five also devotes her time to Made In Heaven (www.madeinheaven.org.uk), a non-profit Shidduch office whose mission is to help single frum (Orthodox) men and women find their zivugim and to be well prepared for marriage.

“In the days of the shtetl (small town),” Estee says, “everyone knew everyone (or so they thought) so the prerequisite of modern day data gathering wasn’t necessary. Through internet search sites and the good old fashioned telephone, information ranging from health concerns to criminal past can be discovered and unearthed.”

“As far as internet dating websites are concerned, any dating strategy which can be cloaked in anonymity could prove to be dangerous. As a networking tool, the internet can be valuable as long as the traditional method of getting information about a perspective date is followed.”

“There is a dark side too, " Estee says. “There are numerous scandals of guys who have photographed their date with their cell phone and passed the photo around to their friends to show how unattractive their date was.”

J-Date ( www.jdate.com ), a Jewish online matchmaking service claims to be “the modern alternative to traditional Jewish matchmaking.” So it was the obvious online service for me. At J-Date I could peruse the online profiles of available Jewish women; probe their likes, interests, get a sense of their physical qualities, their geographic location, and their degree of religious observance.

“You’ve got to improve your profile,” said Marc, a friend, who dated 56 different women in the course of a year on J-Date, until arriving at Cathy, his newly acquired wife; also an alumnus of J-Date.

“Your profile reads too much like a resume. And change your photo. You’re way better-looking than that,” he said.

So I did.

Within days, a curly, dark-haired, native of Saint Petersburg, Russia found me. Asya was the only person in the online pool of women to make contact. As the weeks of our romance went by, it began to feel like it was made in heaven.

At first, Asya (in the States for seven years) worried about her English. “Your English is a whole lot better than my Russian,” I wrote in an online exchange hoping to assuage her anxiety.

“My city is very beautiful!” Asya proclaimed during our first face-to-face meeting, as if to inform me of her standards. A Wikipedia search of Saint Petersburg wields a tome testifying to Saint Petersburg’s beauty. Its history too, is rich.

Fiddler on the Roof, based upon the book Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem, is set in czarist Russia in 1905; the historical precedent of Asya's Soviet Union. The story centers on Tevye and his attempts to maintain his family and religious traditions while outside influences encroach upon his family.

Tevye must cope with the strong-willed actions of his daughters — each daughter’s choice of husband moves progressively further away from established customs — and with the edict of the Tsar that evicts the Jews from their village.

In Act I of Fiddler on the Roof, three of Tevye’s daughters (Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava) sing “Matchmaker” a song full of yearning for their respective zivug. In my case, I didn’t have to sing a song or attempt to find a suitable shadchan (matchmaker); I had to pay for a 3-month J-Date subscription, upload a photo, choose some carefully selected words to describe myself and pray that my online experiment yielded a woman suitable for marriage.

In Judaism the term "People of the Book" (Hebrew: עם הספר, Am HaSefer) refers specifically to the Jewish people and the Torah; also the wider canon of written Jewish law (including the Mishnah and the Talmud). The text is central to the faith; fundamental to its practice and evolution.

As a matter of course, I must delete text messages I receive from Asya. It is a shortcoming of my SIM card. Perhaps the time has come time to upgrade and get more memory enabling me to store the plethora of love notes Asya sends my way — textual proof of our zivug.

“J-Date was a God-send for me,” says Marc. “Suddenly single at the age of 39, with a social circle made up entirely of married couples, I have no idea where I would have gone to meet interesting single women were it not for J-Date.”

Yes, a God-send, indeed.

© 2008 Julie Holley