Friday, April 23, 2010
New York immigrant rabbi sets out to reform 'madness' of Orthodox matchmaking world
A few months after Chanaya Weissman - an Orthodox rabbi from New York - had moved to Jerusalem, an American-born couple offered to set him up with a young woman. Yearning to find a spouse but wary of traditional matchmaking in the Orthodox community, the 31-year-old reluctantly agreed to meet the girl. Then he learned the girl had set some preconditions for the date.
"The person setting us up said the girl wanted me to first speak to her rabbi and if he thinks it's a good idea then we could go ahead," recalled Weissman, who arrived in Israel a year and a half ago. "I said no thank you. I'm interested in meeting a girl, not a rabbi. If this is the queen of England I understand there is a vetting process about getting a private audience - but she's just a regular girl, I need to go through an interview to have the right to take her out to a cup of coffee?"
This girl isn't an isolated case, Weissman says. The Orthodox community - both here and abroad - is full of men and women who set up artificial borders in the name of religious piety, he explained. His would-be date probably felt she did not want to waste her time going on dates that wouldn't end up in marriage. "But it's okay to waste a rabbi's time?" Weissman said this week in Jerusalem, where he teaches in a yeshiva.
Weissman has been concerned about the dating and courting habits of Orthodox Jews long before he started dating himself. Eight years ago, while still a student at New York's Yeshiva University, he founded "End the Madness," an organization dedicated to fighting "the angst and hardships associated with dating in the religious Jewish community." What started as an informational Web site has grown to a decent-sized movement organizing lectures about dating and events for singles to mix and meet. (While Weissman sees himself as an educator and not a matchmaker, he says he knows of at least 20 couples who got married after meeting at his events.) Now Weissman is bringing his project to Israel, at the group's inaugural Israel Shabbaton, taking place May 7 and 8 in Modi'in.
"End the Madness's purpose is to educate the community and bring sanity and Torah values back into the shidduch [dating] world," he said. "There certainly is a shidduch crisis," he said, referring to hordes of frustrated singles unable to meet a partner and to married couples struggling with shalom bayit, or marital harmony. "But the main issues are people not dating with the right mindset and people not having the right opportunities."
One key factor to the shidduch crisis, he says, is a shortage of natural meeting opportunities for Orthodox Jews. "People can meet on the beach or in bars, bur Orthodox Jews, people who don't go to those places, have very limited opportunities to meet," Weissman said, lamenting, for example, that wedding meals are often gender separated.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1164856.html
"The person setting us up said the girl wanted me to first speak to her rabbi and if he thinks it's a good idea then we could go ahead," recalled Weissman, who arrived in Israel a year and a half ago. "I said no thank you. I'm interested in meeting a girl, not a rabbi. If this is the queen of England I understand there is a vetting process about getting a private audience - but she's just a regular girl, I need to go through an interview to have the right to take her out to a cup of coffee?"
This girl isn't an isolated case, Weissman says. The Orthodox community - both here and abroad - is full of men and women who set up artificial borders in the name of religious piety, he explained. His would-be date probably felt she did not want to waste her time going on dates that wouldn't end up in marriage. "But it's okay to waste a rabbi's time?" Weissman said this week in Jerusalem, where he teaches in a yeshiva.
Weissman has been concerned about the dating and courting habits of Orthodox Jews long before he started dating himself. Eight years ago, while still a student at New York's Yeshiva University, he founded "End the Madness," an organization dedicated to fighting "the angst and hardships associated with dating in the religious Jewish community." What started as an informational Web site has grown to a decent-sized movement organizing lectures about dating and events for singles to mix and meet. (While Weissman sees himself as an educator and not a matchmaker, he says he knows of at least 20 couples who got married after meeting at his events.) Now Weissman is bringing his project to Israel, at the group's inaugural Israel Shabbaton, taking place May 7 and 8 in Modi'in.
"End the Madness's purpose is to educate the community and bring sanity and Torah values back into the shidduch [dating] world," he said. "There certainly is a shidduch crisis," he said, referring to hordes of frustrated singles unable to meet a partner and to married couples struggling with shalom bayit, or marital harmony. "But the main issues are people not dating with the right mindset and people not having the right opportunities."
One key factor to the shidduch crisis, he says, is a shortage of natural meeting opportunities for Orthodox Jews. "People can meet on the beach or in bars, bur Orthodox Jews, people who don't go to those places, have very limited opportunities to meet," Weissman said, lamenting, for example, that wedding meals are often gender separated.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1164856.html
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