Sex & Love

To Date A Jew

A couple of years ago I decided to convert to Judaism. No, I didn’t do it for a nice Jewish boy, I did it for a bunch of other reasons. Let me tell you, it kind of sucks to go … Read More

By / December 3, 2008

A couple of years ago I decided to convert to Judaism. No, I didn’t do it for a nice Jewish boy, I did it for a bunch of other reasons. Let me tell you, it kind of sucks to go through that alone. I had tons of stupid questions and often no one to ask them to. One question that seemed to come up a lot was: should I only date Jews?

To be clear: mostly when I say “date” here, I’m not simply talking about the joys of foreskin (versus none) because a drunken hookup is just a drunken hookup, be it with a goy or a rabbi-in-training. No, I’m talking about trying to find someone who will share endless holidays in faraway hometowns with embarrassing members of our extended families. Of course my rabbi is unanimously in favor of my meeting a nice Jewish boy, even though he has never introduced me to any. My Christian parents are far more indifferent, although they would just prefer I stop bringing home losers. And I guess if I really stop to think about it I guess I’d like to meet someone who shares in most of my interests. Let’s be honest, there are a lot of Jewish holidays when it sucks being alone. I mean, try having a Shabbat chicken dinner by yourself while your passive-aggressive vegetarian roommate sits in the living room having loud phone conversations with her obnoxious friends. Not a lot of fun on so many levels. I live in New York, so compared to other parts of the country it should be relatively easy to meet that nice Jewish boy, right? I mean, there are lots of kinds of Jews. I guess I would need to find someone of the relatively same practices that I have. So, I’ve met guys at minyan. But just because they go to shul it doesn’t mean they are not obnoxious or arrogant or creepy and weird or too young or too old or gay or otherwise in some other way wildly incompatible. When I first hit the New York City young 20s/30s (which is code for singles) Jewish scene it was kind of weird how frequently I got asked out. Was it because I was blonde? Or because I didn’t look like their mothers? So I tried JDate, which I’m pretty sure is a requirement for any single girl who is converting. But that was a $39.99 I wish I could get back. So what’s a girl to do? Is it really that important that my partner be Jewish? Shortly after I decided to convert I got involved with a nice Protestant. It wasn’t enough that he wasn’t Jewish, but he was an actual practicing Christian and he went to church every Sunday. Other than that things were great. He was smart and sexy and funny. Sure, he worked long hours, lived with his parents, and had a terrible allergy to chocolate, but we got along great. He accepted my Jewishness while I tolerated his Protestantism which even led to some great discussion on religion. Things eventually didn’t work out, but our breakup wasn’t over religion. I really can’t speak for all single women converting to Judaism. I just know that in my heart of hearts I’d just like to meet someone I’m compatible with. And although I waver on the implementation of this, that probably means I want to meet someone who is Jewish (even if it means that does seem to shrink my options quite a bit). True, there are some days I just like to going on dates, regardless of the potential walk-down-the-isle consideration, but someday I’m sure I’ll meet the nebbish boy of my dreams.