Going Gentile Into That Good Night
Why are non-Jews flocking to Jdate.com?
by Lynn Harris
May 22, 2007
Some of Tony's best friends are Jews. His most significant boyfriend was too, he says. So when his Jewish friend Jessica said, "You can date all the WASPs you want, but you're not going to find someone who'll talk about his feelings or be willing to analyze them," Tony, a New Yorker of non-Jewish Italian descent, found himself posting a profile on JDate.com, "the premier Jewish singles community on the Net."
No avid J-suitor will be shocked to find Tony's profile (which makes clear that he's not Jewish) among the "BlueeyedJew"s and "BagelBoy"s who are both members of the site and members of the tribe. Non-Jews in search of Jews — gay and straight, male and female — have become commonplace on JDate. The percentage of JDate's 650,000 members identifying themselves as religiously "unaffiliated" is now 13% and rising. (Caveat: that designation also includes Jews who don't align themselves with a particular Jewish movement, e.g. Reform or Conservative.) JDate has not gone so far as to add check-boxes for religions other than Jewish — it'd be philosophically tricky — but non-Jews have reached at least one measure of critical mass: the site has added the option of designating oneself "Willing to convert." At this point, it's entirely possible that JDate could bring together two Gentiles. ("It's kismet! We're both into film noir, snowboarding and Jews.")
JDate spokesperson Gail Laguna says she's heard no complaints about non-Jews using the site and that no serious thought has been given to excluding them. (More conservative Jewish dating sites do.) "The site is designed for Jewish singles — there's no way to make that clearer," she says. "We just want to make sure everyone has the tools they need to represent themselves openly and honestly."
Sure, there are a few wise guys, like the fellow who befuddled my friend Abby by saying "Like everyone, I'm a little bit Jewish," or the one who outright lied to my friend Monica that he was a Reform Jew. (Then again, he also failed to mention that he was living in Nigeria.) But in general, the non-Jews on JDate are not shy. Click around a bit, and you'll easily find member profiles declaring "I AM NOT JEWISH!!!" or "I am Roman Catholic, but ..." or simply "ILIKEBACON."
Which begs the question: what are these people doing on JDate? And whatever it is, is it good for the Jews?
For one thing, JDate has a good reputation — and, when it comes to dating and marriage, so do the Jews. Especially men. My non-Jewish friend Laura registered after a work friend said, "If I were single, I'd be on JDate. That's where all the best guys are."
Sure enough, women's profiles confessing a "soft spot for Jewish men" tend to describe them with terms like "family-oriented," "devoted," and "mother." "Jewish men are perceived as mensches, and mensches make the best marriage material," says dating expert Robin Gorman Newman, founder of LoveCoach.com and author of How to Marry a Mensch, adding that of course these are perceptions, if not stereotypes, with plenty of exceptions. "Of course, just because you had a bar mitzvah doesn't mean you're a mensch. Or not a wack-job."
One California woman I spoke to — who was raised Hindu — said that for her, joining JDate was about what she saw as the menschiness of Jewish culture in general, plus the shared background of ancient civilizations and, more recently, the immigrant experience. "From my experience with Jewish friends and a Jewish boyfriend, I feel that we have similar value systems, an emphasis on community activism and education. One of the things that also struck me about Jewish culture is the significance of women in the family. For us, it's more complicated."
And the appeal of Jewish women to non-Jewish men? That's trickier to get at. On the topic of stereotypes, the non-Jewish men trawling JDate, as you may have guessed, do not write things like, "ISO whiny, frigid Rhonda Weiss/Sookie Sapperstein who'll let me hold her purse while she shops." Rather, they seem to come from the some-of-my-best-friends/girlfriends school. ("Maybe it's because I went to good schools and work on Wall Street," one guy suggests in his profile.) Many mention an affinity for their view of Jewish culture: "very tight-knit;" "the food is great." Another fellow told me, "I really like Jewish people," citing, among other things, the Jews' "great sense of humor," which he finds similar to that of his own Eastern European kin.
"My gut would tell me that the men there don't care that much about whether a woman is Jewish," says Robin Gorman Newman. Her hunch: for them, it's less about aiming for Jews, more about casting as wide a dating net as possible. Which, by the way, isn't necessarily a bad approach. JDating can be a good strategy for non-Jews, she says, as long as they're honest about their intentions — particularly with themselves. "Some people are at a loss as to why they're still single," she says, so it's very tempting to turn to magical, rabbit's-foot thinking. "Instead of trying to evaluate any bad choices you might be making, it's easier to say something like, 'Dating someone Jewish is the answer.'"
Whatever the particulars — or psychology — of the attraction, there's also a sense that it's a little trendy to date Jews. "A generation ago, one of the reasons intermarriage rates were low was that non-Jews weren't interested in marrying Jews," notes Dr. Kerry Olitzky, executive director of The Jewish Outreach Institute, which works to bring Judaism to interfaith families and the unaffiliated. But today, there are books like What To Do When You're Dating a Jew: Everything You Need to Know From Matzah Balls to Marriage (which I haven't read), and Boy Vey: The Shiksa's Guide to Dating Jewish Men (which I wish I hadn't, because no one should ever have to read a sentence like "To find a Shiksa with a hilariously high-maintenance mixture of strength and prowess is an utter utopia for the libidinous Jew.") More to the point, I guarantee you that in my immigrant grandfather's day, before the Jews made their way to Harvard and Shaker Heights, you would not have heard a Jewish man called — to cite from Boy Vey! — a "Hebrew honey" or, God help us, "Mr. Tall, Dark, and Circumcised."
So Jews are in. But what about Judaism? Many of the non-J JDaters I encountered indicated a willingness to convert and/or raise Jewish children "for the right person." But for others — despite evidence among young people of a growing interest in the real God stuff of religion — interest in Judaism as a faith was often intellectual at most. "I am much more interested in Judaism as the cradle for some of the most transforming thinkers of the last couple of centuries — Freud, Marx, Einstein," the Eastern European guy told me. We're big fans of Jews and Jewish "culture," several said, but of "organized religion," not so much.
That's the kind of equation that, historically, has worried the Jews: Jews + non-Jews uninterested in Judaism = non-Jews. According to the most recent National Jewish Population Survey, nearly half of American Jews married outside their religion in 2001 (vs. 13 percent in 1970). At the same time, many liberal Jewish leaders and groups are noticing that non-Jews — whether they convert or not — are interested in Judaism, and that interfaith couples are swelling the ranks of synagogues and making their communities more diverse and vibrant than ever. Of course, it goes both ways; those communities need to be welcoming in the first place. "Intermarriage is a reality, so — while some see it as a threat and challenge — we have to seize it as an opportunity," says Dr. Olitzky. "It's not necessarily the way I would have preferred to map out the course of Jewish history, but we have to confront it positively."
So should we worry about the non-Jews on JDate? Nah, says Rabbi Jennifer Krause, author of the forthcoming book The Answer: Making Sense of Life, One Question at a Time. "If people believe that their ideal mate is Jewish, then that's where they're going to look," she says. "Even if they start out with stereotypes, if they want more than a superficial relationship they're going to have to get to know each other as full humans. This is just another address for people to try to find deep and lasting connection."
©2007 Lynn Harris and hooksexup.com