Help Dad: get laidI like to whine about the trials and tribulations of the dating scene for young observant Jews. Besides the innumerable suggestions (read: pressure) to join JDate, there’s the never-ending parental push towards marriage and the intolerable Jewish singles events. But my annoying dates with guys named Reuven and Judah don’t come close to New York Times columnist Bob Morris’s experiences trying to find a match for his widower, octogenarian dad.

In his new book Assisted Loving Morris recounts his experiences guiding his dad through the murky waters of dating, all while looking for his own beshert.

Check out the hilarious Assisted Loving website (make sure your volume is up), listen to a great Fresh Air interview with Morris, and watch the preview below. Then, go out and buy yourself a copy.

 

Muslim women: in search of believersNothing highlights the difference between the Muslim and Jewish attitudes about marriage better than this article in the Washington Post. There are some new resources in the Muslim community devoted to helping new couples get to know each other before and after they’ve married, and the expected matchmaking services. That stuff is nothing new to Jews. But I was fascinated to hear that Muslims share the problem of way more single women than men in their community, and the reason is that Muslims are allowed to intermarry as long as the spouse is “a believer.”

Interfaith marriage is a huge topic with wide cultural ramifications. Because Islamic tradition, not law, holds that a Muslim man can intermarry but not a woman, a substantial gender gap in the dating pool has opened as children and grandchildren of immigrants have grown up.

The Koran says for Muslims to marry "believers," the meaning of which has long been the source of great debate but has been widely interpreted to include Christians and Jews. Although the Koran does not address the gender issue directly, tradition has held that women are more easily subjugated, and therefore a Muslim woman in an interfaith marriage could be forced by a Christian or Jew to live and raise her children outside of Islam, while a Muslim man in an interfaith relationship would be able to control the household's faith.

 

Of course, intermarriage in Islam doesn’t have the pall of death that it has been given in Judaism because there are a billion Muslims in the world, and no one’s worried that they’re dying out. Still, it’s fascinating that in both communities it’s the men that are marrying out, and the women who are mostly staying in. 

Clearly both the Muslim and Jewish communities are waking up to the realities of dating challenges, but I wonder if it’s too little too late. What’s going to happen to the hordes of single women left at the end of the dating game? Something tells me they won’t be running to the synagogue or mosque for comfort.

Two old friends from Hebrew School: OK, I don't know that for a fact, but they COULD beStuffWhitePeopleLike.com gets the Nerve treatment:

I drink too much bottled water (#76). I wear overpriced vintage t-shirts (#84), loved studying abroad (#72) and stand completely still at concerts (#67). I'm a fan of Michel Gondry (#68), Apple products (#40) and Stephen Colbert (#35). I've threatened to move to Canada on more than one occasion (#75). And I don't mind that StuffWhitePeopleLike.com — a blog that lampoons the over-educated yuppies and hipsters who populate the nation's trendy urban centers and mixed-use development zones — pinpoints me with such eerie accuracy, assessing my predilections like a gifted psychic reader. The site is a fairly amusing send-up of the slightly embarrassing, clearly predictable culture I'm a part of.

But the fact that it also describes virtually my entire dating history — that really unnerves me. When I moved to New York, I imagined my dating repertoire would reflect the diversity of a Barack Obama rally (#8). But this doesn't happen, or at least, it didn't for me. I ended up dating exactly the people StuffWhitePeopleLike.com depicts: other white people who'd come to New York lusting after authenticity, ponying up their ample disposable income to purchase something that feels like "the real thing." People like me who moved here to drink from some mystical font of urban cultural capital, then just kept on dating within the tight-jean pool.

This strikes me as incredibly central to all the hand-wringing about intermarriage. Because while the Jewish community at large is busy panicking about young Jews marrying out, the truth is that “out” is a lot more complicated than anyone is willing to admit, at least if you’re not going by strict Halachic law.

The most modern argument against intermarriage goes like this: “But honey, you’ll just be so much happier with someone who shares your culture.” Certainly this is a lot easier to digest than “But honey, God doesn’t like his people as much as He likes our people.” And in a less secular country, maybe it would make sense.

The truth is, though, that unless you’re fairly observant, “your culture” probably doesn’t have that much to do with your Judaism. In fact, for many Jews, “your culture” is just the culture of all privileged, college-educated creative types—the white people of StuffWhitePeopleLike. And if what you want is someone who shares your love of sushi, indie rock, and Michel Gondry, there’s no reason to hang out at Jewish singles events. All you really need to do is go stand in front of Whole Foods.

Kids, stay back: MazoPhil Mazo’s upcoming comedy-album debut, Pervert, drops April 1. Listen as Mazo, a vaguely creepy comic from Jersey, riffs on the "I'm less Jewy than you are" J-Date courtship ritual.

 

 

J-Love conquers all: A JDate billboard looms over Boston I am a New York City–dwelling, L Word–watching, liberal-minded hipsterish hetero. A girl who has always thought it would be kinda sorta maybe cool to make out with another girl but never has. That kind. And yet....

As my 30th birthday approached, I found myself single — and celibate — for a longer stretch than I've ever wanted to be. As more and more friends settled into the adult worlds of marriage and parenthood, I started lamenting my missed opportunities, as if 30 marked some sort of slow decline toward death.

I was embroiled in a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship — with JDate. What had once been exciting — a sea of eligible Jewish men for the taking! — had become a virtual waiting room of guys who liked to work hard and play hard and enjoyed staying in as much as they liked going out.

It was a particularly heinous-feeling I'm-never-going-to-have-sex-again kind of night when I received a Flirt from ArtsyGrrl18*, a curvaceous and pretty woman seeking a woman. Her message was nothing more than a cheesy canned pick-up line chosen from a drop-down menu: "You're burning up my monitor — are you always this hot?" But I felt a flutter in my stomach. And while, yeah, OK, I'm straight, I didn't really care. I was smitten. Sort of.

I was sick of men. Sick of corresponding with guys only to meet them in person and find out we have zero chemistry, to repeatedly come to the soul-crushing realization that the dream lover I'd imagined doesn't exist anywhere in this universe. Sick of pretending to be indifferent just so I won't scare them away. I'm not indifferent. Why should I be? Men could keep their issues and their fear of commitment. They could have their erectile dysfunction and their emotional unavailability. I was moving on to bigger, better (softer, nicer-smelling) things.

I immediately drafted a response. "I'm burning up your monitor?" I asked incredulously. "Come on, that's almost as bad as some of the guys on here." My reply accomplished a few things. It flirted back, it put her in her place and, perhaps most important, it reminded her that I was used to being courted by men. I hit send without stopping to wonder what I was doing.

A few days passed with no reply, and I began to worry. Had it been wrong to mention men? It was no secret that I'm straight. What was the sense of playing down that fact when it was, in fact, a fact? Maybe that was even part of what drew her to me — I was, in theory, off-limits. Every day I skimmed through message upon message from a nondescript crop of men, obsessively refreshing my in-box, automatically declining IM requests from the likes of Mensch4U and JewtasticNYC, hoping that each new page would bring a sign of ArtsyGrrl18.

And then, on the fifth day, there was light, in the form of a blinking-envelope new-message icon. "LOL, Carla," she'd written back. "You rock so hard." How adorable, I thought. What a gem! It's true, a similar response from a man probably would have found its way into my Trash bin. But I was hooked. There was no doubt about it: ArtsyGrrl18 would signify my first trip into Girltown.

"I think I'm going to go out with a girl!" I told friends. They all looked at me strangely, as if I'd told them I was thinking of piercing my nipples or moving to India, that I was going to do something that sounded adventurous and edifying but in reality was probably foolish and regrettable. And they all asked the same thing: "Do you really want to date a woman?"

Straight-girl lesbian-dating: Don't knock it till you've tried it A good question. Did I want to date a woman? Well let's see. I love women. Most of my closest friends are women. But no, all right, that's not what they meant. So did I want to kiss a woman? Well, sure! Maybe. Life's too short not to try it, right? And kissing's always nice. OK, forget kissing. Did I want to get naked and sweaty and dirty with a woman? Oh boy, now it was getting tricky. Maybe if Susan looked like Diane Lane. (She did not.) And maybe if the prospect of a man were anywhere on the horizon. (Mensch4U's ability to feel as comfortable in a T-shirt as in a tux and JewtasticNYC's exciting life as an actuary weren't exactly getting my blood going.) Maybe if I could keep my eyes closed and spend more time receiving than giving. Whatever, I thought. I'd figure out the particulars later. I was going to do this, damn it, so I decided to address my reservations the best way I knew how: by ignoring them.

Susan and I e-mailed for about a week, and then she decided we should talk on the phone.

When she called, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I jumped, even though I knew it was her before picking up. She'd scheduled the time for our phone date (who schedules a phone date?), but even if she hadn't, there was an urgency in the ring that told me it was her. Or maybe it just seemed that way.

But the conversation was easy. There were no awkward silences. Aside from the weird feeling in my stomach, talking to Susan was just like talking to a girlfriend. You know, a girl friend. When she let slip, "You're cute," or worse, tried to talk about "us," I shifted the topic to more platonic things.

At one point, I managed to get out, "I don't know how much of a tease I'm being." It was the only thing I'd rehearsed, the one thing I'd known I would have to say, even before the phone rang.

I was still speaking when she said, "That's OK." I could feel the period of my sentence hanging somewhere in the middle of hers. She wasn't listening to me. "Do you like more masculine or feminine women?" she asked.

Oh, Jesus. "I'm not sure what kind of women I like because I've never liked a woman before."

I had thrown in the "before" to be kind, even though I knew lying now might result in an even bigger cruelty later. What was true was that I was curious, I was intrigued, I was flattered, I was bored. But I did not know if I was interested. And wasn't that what she was really asking?

When she pressed it further, I tried to think of celebrities I found hot. Jennifer Lopez, sure. Rosie O'Donnell, not so much. Scarlett Johansson? Yes, please. Lea Delaria? Hell to the no. "Feminine, I guess."

Which led to a discussion of the photographs she had posted with her profile. "The one of you in the red top is nice," I said. I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. The red top was pretty low-cut. I could hear her smiling.

"You like the boobies, then."

Like a boy, but nicer-smelling: As a straight girl, would you switch teams for J-Lo? "You just look happy in that picture. And red's a really good color on you. " There was no fucking way I was talking about boobies.

We chatted a bit longer and hung up with a time and a place to meet. Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. "It's me," she said. Her sense of familiarity annoyed me, and the second call caught me more off-guard. Men did not hang up the phone and call back 20 minutes later. At least not men I've ever known. I suddenly understood that old joke: What do lesbians bring on a first date? A U-Haul.

"You make a person want to cancel her appointments and just keep talking to you," she said. I wouldn't have believed it if I'd read it in a book. I'd have chalked it up to melodrama if it were a line in some asinine romantic comedy.

"Oh," was all I could muster.

"Can you talk a bit more?" I was already planning on telling her not really, but then she added, "Just for like 20 minutes." It was so exact, so needy, so faux casual that I couldn't even consider saying yes.

"Look," I said, "I've really got to go. We're going to see each other in a few days." I could sense disappointment on her end, but what could I do? This woman seemed crazy! We'd never even met! Didn't she know you can't just act on every impulse you have? That you need to play the game? I shuddered. What the hell was going on here?

Susan's disappointment didn't last long because that night, around midnight, my phone rang again and we had our third conversation of the day. On the first day we'd ever talked at all. I had gotten my wish: an attentive mate who said what she meant and meant what she said. And I couldn't have been more freaked out about it.

But the truth is I enjoyed talking to her. In fact, I opened up to Susan in that third conversation more than I have with some men I've dated for months. But Susan was sensitive. She didn't spook at the first mention of imperfection, of baggage. She was, after all, a girl.

The week after our first day of phone calls passed with alarming speed. I grew increasingly panicked as our date neared. "Blow it off," one friend advised. "You're not a lesbian!" A good point. And yet, didn't I owe it to myself to see how this thing played out? I'd already come so far! Wasn't it time to live a little dangerously in homage to all the friends who were now shopping for Bugaboos and obsessing over seating arrangements? Going out with Susan wasn't something I necessarily wanted to do, but something I felt I should, to build character. I mean, going weak in the knees for someone or wanting to tear his clothes off the second you see him is nice, I guess, but it doesn't hold a candle to character, right? Right?!

Sunday arrived, and I woke up groggy. My sleep had been fitful and uneasy. I was supposed to get in touch with Susan to confirm the details of our date. I didn't. Later that day I received an e-mail from her: "Am I right in assuming you've lost interest in meeting me?"

Hot straight girl-on-girl action: Sca-Jo and N-Po (Even worse, she had accidentally sent a slightly altered draft of the message, too. I was mortified for her. I was mortified for me—how many times had I agonized over every syllable in a one-line missive to a man who probably skimmed it anyway, too distracted by ball-scratching or mirror-gazing to care?)

My response to Susan's e-mail surprised even me: "What makes you think I've lost interest?" Holy shit, I thought. I am a guy. I am a motherfucking guy. I was full-on playing with her head, and it terrified me how naturally it came, how easily and effortlessly the transition had occurred. Didn't I complain that men can never just make a plan and stick with it? That they're purposefully evasive? That they toy with our emotions for sport? What could I have been thinking?

Not much, I guess, because I strung Susan along for a week or two. I answered her phone messages with e-mails. I canceled plans at the last minute once because I got stuck at work and another time because a friend sprang last-minute birthday plans on me (a last-minute birthday?). Finally I decided to do something no man has ever done with me: I decided to come clean.

"Look," I wrote, "I'm really sorry. I never meant for this to happen or for things to get this far only to have me chicken out. I just don't think my heart is really in it. And I sort of wish it were. I'm truly sorry if I've hurt you."

And she, also being female, responded in a similarly refreshing way: with honesty, compassion and understanding: "I'm a little bummed because I thought we were connecting, but no worries, OK? Please. Call me if you ever change your mind. Goodbye, beautiful."

Her e-mailed crushed me. It made me want to write back and tell her I was wrong, that we should meet, but I didn't. The kindness was what I was attracted to. It always had been. I just couldn't get down with the boobies.

In the end, Girltown turned out to be less like an exciting vacation spot and more like a restaurant I wanted to gawk at through the windows but never actually eat in. Today when friends and I are contemplating how to proceed with men we're dating, what the best course of action is, we invoke the question WWSD — What Would Susan Do? We figure out the answer, then do the opposite. And I hate that we have to. But I guess that's the price you pay for being a straight girl.

*Names and Jdate handles have been changed.

God, this column torments me! On the one hand, I’m currently listening to podcasts of the world’s best break-up songs on Minnesota Public Radio, which is making my heart feel all melty towards those in the love-finding trenches. On the other hand, there is a guy on JDate who goes by the handle SuckItUp33, which is so gross and hostile that I can’t NOT make fun of him.

On the other other hand, SuckItUp sounds exactly like the kind of guy I would have made out with back when I was a pretentious 23-year-old with a limited alcohol tolerance:

I'm sarcastic, I can be obnoxious, and the word arrogant has been thrown around before also...but I am also loyal, intelligent, classy, motivated, dedicated, educated, even-keeled, well-written...and dashingly handsome… I think its hot when girls get drunk and stick their tongues out and I really like girls who use words like "capricious", "salacious", and "pedantic".

Listen, I don’t mean to be pedantic, but that tongue thing is unfortunately salacious, and even if you sign up for JDate as a total caprice, the least you can do is proofread your profile (that “its” takes an apostrophe – it’s a contraction, not a possessive.)

SuckItUp definitely comes in second, but before I reveal my absolutely favorite JDater girl so far, a pair of third-placers:

• Loveme823, poor thing. I hope she thought long and hard about that name. If it’s “Love, Me” as in “Dear Boyfriend, had to run but have a great day, Love, Me” written on a post-it on the pillow, then it’s cute. As a naked plea for affection, though: Oy.
• Ffffffflorida, whose profile reads like his mom literally forced him to sign up. He says he “would love to meet a jewish girl.. and have little jew bagel babies,” his perfect first date involves “complete aquardness and very uncomfortable,” and he’s looking for “a jewish princess, so my rents tell me...”

Nobody, though, is as awesomely honest as ChalahBack. She enjoys the Scottsdale nightlife, she considers bad sex a dealbreaker, and she’s looking for someone who “butters my Muffin upon request.” ChalahBack, we at Jewcy all wish you a future full of happy muffin-buttering.

Alex is a 23-year-old videographer living in New York City. He has never been on a Valentine’s Day date despite being totally adorable, so he’s looking for love on YouTube.

Some things about Alex: He likes Point Break, he’s Jewy enough to have made a video counting the MOTs at Heeb’s Hot 100 Party, and if you watch this film demonstrating the unflattering qualities of American Apparel spandex, you can see him in his underwear.

His MySpace page says that he’s looking for “beautiful girls with freckled faces and sugary attitudes that like to make tents in bed with our legs. and when we fall asleep their midsection where my arm rests feels exactly like the pillow i hug at night as i fall asleep,” so if that sounds like you, send him a message. And then tell us how it goes!

It’s always easier to argue that we should limit someone’s choices than to argue that we should let someone decide for themself, simply because we all know tons of people making incredibly bad choices every day. The rise of leggings alone could stand as an example of why people should not be allowed to do so much as dress themselves without consulting a panel of experts. But making decisions is a part of being an adult, and the more we blanket our lives with across-the-board restrictions the less responsible we become.
Shomer Negiah Panties: the last reserve
As a result of it being easier to tell people not to do something than to tell them to do it carefully, it’s really hard to talk about not being shomer negiah without sounding like you’re just trying to come up with an excuse to have sex. I know because I’ve had this conversation about five hundred times in the last five years, and though I’m confident that being shomer negiah would not be the right decision for me, my reasons don’t sounds as sexy as the shomer negiah advocates’. But I’m okay with that, because my reasons, though perhaps lacking in sex appeal, are legit. Allow me to explain...

The first reason to question the whole shomer negiah movement is the lack of halacha backing it up. 'Shomer negiah' (a term that occurs nowhere in rabbinic literature) is a technical prohibition against lustful touch (Rambam & Shach on Shulchan Aruch) between a guy and a girl who is considered ritually impure as a result of menstruation, or with a guy and any other forbidden relation. That’s it. Contemporary teachers and overreachers have been teaching that shomer negiah is actually a prohibition against touching someone of the opposite sex at all, but as far as I know, there’s absolutely no halachic basis for that. Presumably, if I got myself to a mikvah, there would be no halachic problem with me kissing my date.

Now, that’s good enough of a reason for me, but not for almost anyone who has read The Magic Touch or I Kissed Dating Goodbye, so let’s look at some more ideological concerns.
Hammer Says: Can't touch this!
One of the things that appalls me about a lot of the shomer negiah rhetoric is that it belittles how important the physical aspect of a marriage can be. Example: I recently went on a couple of dates with a really great guy. He was nice, cute, smart, funny and generally excellent marriage material. But there were no sparks. And neither of us wanted to be in a relationship that was purely cerebral. I want my husband to be nice, cute, smart, funny, and also incredibly sexy. He has to have some quality that makes me anxious to spend every night in his bed for the rest of my life. That’s not a minor thing, and though I might have an okay sense of whether a guy has that without running my fingers through his hair at some point, I’d really rather check before I sign up forever and ever amen.

Sometimes what I hear from people pushing shomer negiah sounds like a fancy way of advocating delayed gratification. Essentially, if you wait until you get married then it will be so so amazing when you finally do get to touch/sleep with that person. But the obvious problem with that is that it might not be that great. I mean, the holding hands part might be awesome, but as soon as you have a slimy tongue in your mouth for the first time and you don’t know what to do with it, I imagine the charm is somewhat less potent. And yes, of course you’ll learn and adjust to what you and your partner want, but the beginning is unlikely to be all violins swelling in the background and fireworks sparkling over the bed. So the delayed gratification argument is, as far as I can tell, ridiculous.

But the real reason I touch the men I date is because I’m an adult, and I deserve to have a physical relationship with whoever it is I’m in a relationship with. I really don’t believe that kissing someone has a detrimental effect on that relationship if we’re not married, nor do I think that having kissed someone else will mean that whatever relationship I have with my future husband is somehow less special.

Sex is a different issue. Being shomer negiah today doesn’t mean being a virgin, it means not touching anyone of the opposite sex, which is a much bigger thing than just waiting to get laid until you get married.

I have a lot of respect for people who decide to wait for sex until marriage, but at the end of the day I’m a lot more concerned that my husband and I share views on how to raise the kids, or how we’re going to observe Shabbat than that we’re both virgins on our wedding night.

Sex is a serious thing, and anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding himself (or herself). But it’s not the only serious thing, and I worry about the amount of emphasis that being shomer negiah puts on sexuality. I’m all for encouraging people to be really careful about the decisions they make in relationships, but being a virgin when you get married doesn’t trump everything else. If you marry the wrong person, it’s still the wrong person no matter how little experience you have in the sack.
Here I Am: not being shomer negiah. Scandal!

Which brings me back to my original point. Being shomer negiah treats the symptoms, not the problem. Preaching a hands off/all-virginity-all-the-time policy isn’t the way to make sure that people think before they jump into bed with someone. And it doesn’t teach anyone to be particularly good at recognizing good and bad relationships when they see them.

 

It’s important to guard your touch, and the touch of those in your life. But that’s not the only thing that goes into a successful relationship, and claiming anything to the contrary is dishonest.

On Monday I wrote about how single people are sick of being told to shack up, and tarfon responded:

Yes to everything you say, except the last point. Asking whether X is dating anyone is not at all the same as asking how much sex X is having. It's OK to ask X whether he/she's dating someone, but it's not OK to ask what they do after the dates.

So!: Are you seeing anyone?

But you're absolutely right that married folks need to invite singles over (and to accept return invitations) more than they do. Single folks are part of the community and should be treated as such.

Specifically, tarfon is referring to the final paragraph of my post:

So today’s practical spiritual advice is to first invite the singles that you know over more, and second to stop bugging them about their love life. Do they ask about how much sex you’re having with your partner? If not, then you don’t get to ask if they’re dating someone, and if not, why not.

Initially I tried to clarify my point with tarfon, and considered that I hadn’t thought out my position particularly carefully, but the more thought I gave it the more I agreed with myself.

Relationship information is just not something that can or should be asked about in a public setting. Whether or not I’m dating someone is just none of the business of anyone at shul. I can ask about someone’s wife because it’s public knowledge that he’s married, but I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone but the closest friend about how the relationship is going in any specific way, and that’s because putting someone on the spot can be humiliating or just plain unpleasant. For everything that Jewish law says about modesty there is a pretty shocking lack of privacy for most people who are dating or thinking about dating, and I find that really offensive and sad.

The issue is mostly the people who want to know if you’re dating because they have an opinion on the matter—your hair is the problem, this is the wrong city for single Jewish girls, you’re not mature enough, have you met my nephew Max?—but the people who think that it’s just pleasant conversation over kichel at Kiddush are equally frustrating. Does a person who’s single want to have to reiterate their status ten times every Shabbat? Probably not. And even if he has started dating someone, is it something he necessarily wants to chat about with the gabbai? Unlikely.

Please people, watch what you say to us single people. At the very least you should expect that we’re writing about you on our blogs, criticizing your nosy ways and your bad manners.

On Saturday I was at shul and I invited this family over for Friday night dinner. The first thing the father said when I invited them was, “I think people should invite you over.”

What the fuck am I supposed to say that? I think that way, too, but if people don’t invite me I’m not going to sit at home alone feeling sorry for myself. And then the same guy asks if I have enough room at my place for his whole family, and after I told him that I had 34 people at my house for dinner the night before, that I have a two bedroom apartment to myself, he says “You need a guy.” At first I thought he said, “You need a car,” which was really confusing, but as soon as I realized what he did actually say I was irritated.

First of all, I don’t NEED a guy, and I don’t see how my inviting a family over for dinner would in any way solicit that remark, but anyway, if I had a guy it’s not like he would be living in the guest bedroom. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if I was dating someone he’d be staying in my bed.

The whole thing got me thinking again about how poorly most communities (especially smaller communities) deal with single people. For some reason singles are often overlookedNone of Your Business: now, what's for dinner? for Shabbat invitations (I have actually had someone tell me she didn’t want the mix of people to be unbalanced by one single person at the table) and even though being single doesn’t say anything about one’s personality or interests, there are constantly these ridiculous and embarrassingly lame events planned for single people, as if somehow by single we’re united under some kind of banner.

Though I can’t say I would be opposed to being in a relationship right now, it’s hardly the top item on my To Do list, and honestly the most compelling reason to start dating someone these days is just to get the rest of the community to lay off for a while. I’m not interested in Jdating, nor do I want to go on a blind date with your nephew Jonah who’s in dental school. I’m BUSY.

So today’s practical spiritual advice is to first invite the singles that you know over more, and second to stop bugging them about their love life. Do they ask about how much sex you’re having with your partner? If not, then you don’t get to ask if they’re dating someone, and if not, why not.

A friend and fellow blogger (I realize I have no shame linking to her like that) has decided it's time to find Mr. Menschy Right and over numerous gmail chat sessions, we have been digging through dating sites and profiles and such and found some things you might have overlooked. I can't say I can personally vouch for any of these, but let's assume that by my listing them I have not personally heard anyone say a date from any of these sites resulted in calling the cops, getting matched with a relative or otherwise grossed-out and a couple of these sites even resulted in some hot bashert-y action for a few people I know.

Shabbat Shalommmm!: Got plans Friday night?

1.Frumster. You've probably heard of it. Maybe you've been intimidated to use it because you don't call yourself frum? Puhleeze. It's not all frum, give it a whirl.

 2. Jewish Quality Singles. So what if only three people I know heard of this site prior to my asking about it? There were some decent-looking menschy types on the pages I clicked around on, so ya nevah know.

3. A Jewish Dating Site. So what if the first couple you see when you click over is dressed in circa-1985 finery? Old is new, bitches. 80s revival is in for autumn '07.

4. Jewish Singles Cafe. Yeah the page banner looks like a Sweet & Low advertisement. Big deal. Saccharin schmaccharin!

5. Jewish Matchmaker. Eh, it's free. Give a little try. 

6. Jmerica. Okay, slight bias here. I am sort of kind of BFFs with (and rumored to be related to) the or one of the masterminds behind this one. But, I can at least vouch for it's non-suckitude in that way, eh? Eh?

7. Saw You At Sinai. Well, with a catchy little name like that, what's bad? Look for their cute "You had me a Shalom" bookmarks at all the MOT get-togethers. Or I'll give you one sometime. I have like eight, for reals.  

8. J Singles. What giant smiles on the front page! Look how happy those two are! They are so peas and carrots. 

9. J Love. So you meet the love of your life on a website that sounds like a funk band. Big deal.  

10. Jewish Friend Finder. Something about this title reminds me of how little old ladies introduce same-sex couples when they're trying really, really hard to be cool. "Esther, this is my grandson and is... uh, friend.." with "friend" all in air-quotes. (Speaking of oddly-used quotes, this is a great blog sent unto me today. Hilar squared.)

11. Executive Jewish Dating. Hey, if that's your bag, you might as wel.

12. J Soul Mate. Nice website, friendly-looking people, eh, why not? (I'm not positive you can be terribly successful if you are anything other than straight here, fyi.)

13. J Retro Match. I enjoy the retro trivia.

14. Someone Jewish. Find, schmooze, meet. 

15. Let My People Go. The title alone should get you clicking. 

16. Sephardic Date. The bears on the site creep me out, but otherwise, yeah, seems swell. 

17. Craigslist RSS. Here's what you do. Go into your group (m4w, w4m, m4m, w4w, whatever), set your age range and then scroll down after you do the search and there is an RSS feed option. What the fuck does that mean? It means you'll get any new ads that fit your criteria in the form of an update in your RSS reader (bloglines, etc.). Not too shabby.

18. Koolanoo.  Seems to be one of those sites people either really like or really don't like, but it's a site, it's social and it's Jewy. 

In light of yesterday’s post I’ve been thinking about dating and some particularly Jewish dating problems. (Because it’s not like I ever think about dating without some kind of professional prompt).

Anyway, one of the things that I’ve found to be really important to me when I’m dating someone is intense privacy. I have probably had more than my fair share of secret boyfriends, and though sometimes it was because going public would have upset our families or friends, more often it was simply because we wanted to get to know each other and spend time with each other without the pressure that so often comes with dating, especially in the Jewish community, where a singleton can’t walk three steps without someone asking if they’re seeing anyone, and if they’d maybe like to meet my nephew, he’s a dentist and he went to Princeton…. I don’t know about others, but having my community constantly scrutinizing who I go out with, and how often, is demoralizing and embarrassing, and generally cancels out any romance that might have existed. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that people want to fix me up, because I really am flattered and often interested in meeting the men that are suggested. But if the date is going to have to exist within this critical mass of public scrutiny, I’m not interested.

It’s interesting, because there are places you can go—in Israel especially, though obviously this happens anywhere there’s a big Orthodox community—to watch young frum couples on shidduch dates. These dates are held exclusively in very public venues, like hotel lobbies, under the watchful eyes of other couples, and various community members. The idea is that nothing should become private until a couple is actually married. Until that point, everything should be open for conversation.

While I see how that works in the most observant communities, it’s simply unmanageable for me. I cannot focus enough on someone in a public setting like a lobby, or even a bar, to know if I want to spend more time with them. Privacy has always been such a big part of my life, and so it’s a part of my dating life, too. I have to make a small investment of privacy in someone before I decide if a bigger investment is worth my time.

I recognize that this is completely against the haredi view of dating, and perhaps even to halacha (I don’t know enough about yichud to make this call, but I suspect my preference is not halachic) but it’s the reality of the way I deal with relationships. And I think it mirrors the way I operate with God, too. I often prefer to daven alone simply because I want to have some privacy with God.

This isn’t the case with everyone, but next time you’re talking to a young single friend about how his last date went, think about taking a step back, and allowing him to process things without the community’s input. There’s a lot of time in a good relationship for engagement with community, but I wish we gave young people a little more agency when they’re making choices. It seems, ultimately, like the responsible thing to do.

In keeping with the theme of a lack of privacy inhibiting people from getting to know each other, here’s an awesome short video about lawyers, sex and consent.

This morning I was reading an article in the New York Times about women who don’t like dating men who make much less money than they do because it makes for an awkward--or at the very least unromantic--dynamic. The article ends with the following little date anecdote:
So....: How do you keep kosher?

Unyi Agba, 27, an advertising executive with a small firm in Boston, almost always dates professional men, but when she goes out with someone earning less money, there is tension. “This is a topic that’s traveled in my own female circles a lot in the last year,” she said. Across a restaurant table with a man who earns less, “it’s never explicitly said, but there are nuances,” she said. “Things are said like, ‘Boy I’m going to be really broke after this dinner.’ "
And her response?
“Silence.”

Full story

I was thinking about this because in my dating life it’s generally not the income that’s an issue so much as the particular level of religiosity or observance. The awkward silences that happen on my dates aren’t because of financial discrepancies, they’ll be because he’ll say something like, “I’m so excited to go to the Titans game on Saturday morning,” and I’ll have nothing add, since I’m going to spending Saturday morning at shul.

This is something that doesn’t get discussed much, but that is a real and frustrating issue for most singles I know. The pressure is on to find a Nice Jewish Partner, and everyone acts like it’s as easy as joining JDate, but the truth is that even a Nice Jewish Boy from the Upper West Side might not be a good match for me if he’s particularly invested in going to a lot of Big Ten football games, or even if he just hates ever going to synagogue. And a superfrum black hat guy from Monsey probably wouldn’t be happy with me and my jeans and non shomer-negiah lifestyle.

People like to downplay this as an issue, but the more time I spend in the dating circuit the more I notice how tough it is, especially for people who really are engaged with Jewish life in any substantial way, to find someone who even approaches their level of observancy. And honestly if you find someone who you really like but who doesn’t jive with the standards you’ve set for yourself, I don’t know of any resources or groups you can join to help figure out how to deal with that situation, even though it can be as challenging for you and your partner as it would be if one of you wasn’t Jewish. I’d say it even has potential to be more problematic than dating a non-Jew, because I think a lot of times in those situations the non-Jewish person doesn’t feel like they could be being judged or ridiculed for not participating in a ritual or joining an organization. As a goy, they’re exempt. But if I was dating a Jewish guy and he saw that I was keeping Shabbat, and wouldn’t eat meat in non kosher restaurants, he would be justified in being annoyed that I’m ruining his plans for crazy nights at the bars downtown, or forcing him to change reservations so we don’t eat at a steak house. I mean, he's Jewish and he's not staying in. And I would be justified in being annoyed that he doesn’t want to come to shul with me.

I don’t know what the solution to this is, other than only dating people whose religious lives are already really similar to yours, and I know that in any relationship there are going to be some discrepancies between how observant the two parties are and are willing to become. I’m just saying, no one ever talks about how hard it can be¬--even when you’re only dating Jews—to find someone who is really on the same spiritual and religious plane as you are. I’ve dated nonJews and never missed Shacharit, and I’ve dated Jews and had them convince me to come with them to a bar on Shabbat and they would just pay for my drinks. I’m not saying either of those were good relationships to begin with, I just think that if we’re going to push Jewish dating so hard we should have some contingency plans for couples that don’t belong to the same movement.

Congratulations!  You’ve finally found your bashert.  You are so in love and a perfect match in every way – except that he’s shomer Shabbat and you can’t wake up without Saturday morning cartoons.  Or you don’t eat at non-kosher restaurants, while she routinely heads to Burger King to soothe her cheeseburger fix.  Welcome to the strange world of Jewish dating – a land where two people of the same faith can be religiously miles apart.  Luckily, there’s one thing that all Jews can agree on – food…or so I thought.

In my own pluralistic Jewish relationship, the subject of cheese has become a surprisingly contentious topic.   In one corner we have a farmers’ market shopping, microwave shunning, organic loving food snob (me).  In the other corner we have my kosher-keeping, bachelor-kitchen owning boyfriend.  Like any good foodie, I’m rather obsessed with good cheese – the stinky, artisanal stuff that evokes that elusive food sense, umami.  My boyfriend also likes good cheese, but if confronted with the choice between the non-kosher aged cheddar and a slice of highly processed kosher cheese from Miller’s, he’ll invariably pick door number two.

The problem is, Miller Cheese makes me want to start throwing things.  Honestly, if you have to dig through three layers of plastic to unearth a flavorless orange brick, why bother with cheese at all?  Our disagreement certainly isn’t the stuff of breakups, but soon after we started dating, finding a happy cheese medium with my boyfriend became a high priority on my list.   

Enter 5-Spoke Creamery.  According to their website (and also to owners Barbara and Alan, whom I met recently at their vendor booth at Jewzapalooza), all of their cheeses are made by hand from the raw milk [swoon] of grass-fed [double swoon] Holstein cows, are pesticide and hormone free,” and (and!!) “are kosher certified Kof-K.”

PestoliciousToo good to be true?  After trying their Redmond Cheddar and Herbal Jack (a mix of chives and garlic), I’m a believer.  It had the "real cheese" flavor that I love and the legit certification that my boyfriend needs.  I like it so much, I decided to create a celebratory dish to honor the company that brought cheesy harmony to my pluralistic relationship. 

5-Spoke Pasta with Cheese with Arugula Pesto
Serves 4

*Serve this dish with a green salad and, if you're trying to woo someone, a bottle of dry red wine (see The Jew & The Carrot's wine list for delicious, kosher, organic suggestions.)

Pasta
1 package of dry or fresh pasta (macaroni, spirals, shells, penne etc.)

Cheese sauce
1 1/2 cups shredded (or cubed) Redmond Cheddar from 5-Spoke Creamery
1/3-2/3 cup milk
2 Tbs unsalted butter
½ tsp mustard powder
pinch of nutmeg

Pesto
1 large bunch fresh basil
1 bunch fresh arugula (fresh spinach works too, and will yield a more subtle pesto)
2-3 garlic cloves, with skins removed and roughly chopped
½ cup toasted pine nuts  http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/food/cooking/pine_nuts.html
Olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste

Directions
Start with the pesto.  Thoroughly wash the argula and basil, removing all grit and sand.  Remove basil leaves from stems.  Roughly chop together with the arugula on a cutting board.  Add all the greens to a food processor (a blender works too, but not as well).  Add the garlic cloves and toasted pine nuts and pulse in food processor until roughly combined.  Add in olive oil, about 4 tablespoons at a time, continuing to pulse the food processor between each addition until the mixture turns into a paste.  Add salt and pepper and blend once more.  Scoop 2/3 cup into a bowl and set aside.  Put the remaining pesto into a Tupperware and freeze it for an easy pasta sauce or sandwich spread later.

Make the pasta.  Fill a quart-sized pot with water.  Add a shake of salt and a drop of oil to the water and set to boil.  Once boiled, cook pasta according to directions on box.  Drain, set aside in a large bowl.

Meanwhile, make the cheese sauce.  Melt the butter in a sauce pan over low-med heat.  As soon as it melts (before it gets brown and bubbly!) add the milk and stir to combine.  Add ½ the cheese and stir frequently, until melted.  Add the rest of the cheese, the nutmeg and the mustard powder and continue stirring, adjusting the sauce with more milk or cheese, if necessary, until you get the desired thickness.

Pour hot cheese sauce and pesto over the pasta and stir to coat.    

The high holidays are a time for new beginnings—a kind of reset button on whatever you’ve gotten wrong in the past year. Services take care of your spiritual crimes, allowing you to wash all the grime off your metaphysical windows and start over fresh. But what about the more literal, practical, day-to-day mistakes you’d like to erase? Kol Nidre can release you from any number of vows, but not the one you made to your credit card company to pay back that $1500.

Hence Jewcy’s guide to starting over. We’ll tell you how to clean up past messes and prep for future successes in six categories:

Sex, love and dating | Health | Friendships | Family | Money | Work

Consulting myriad websites, books, and experts, we've pulled together 26 separate ways to start the year squeaky clean. Click the links above to get to each section, and remember: If Madonna can reinvent herself every few years, so can you.

This advice column from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who is always willing to lecture people about their Jewishness or lack thereof, gives advice to a Christian man who met an Israeli woman online.

Compare that with this story that came over the wire today, about an Australian guy who got scammed into thinking he was falling in love with a woman he met online. When he went to Mali to 'meet' her, he ended up being kidnapped and held for $86,000 ransom.

I mean, how can anyone who has ever used JDate ever doubt that people lie on the internet? I know I said that I was five-foot-six, but I was kind of rounding up...

Rabbi Eliezer says, "Whoever teaches his daughter Torah teaches her lasciviousness.”—BT Sotah 20a

“So,” he says in a low, soft voice, leaning across the table. “Tell me, what does Judaism say about sex?”

“Be fruitful and multiply,” I say flatly, and start laughing.

“What does that mean?” he asks.

“It means that the Torah and the rabbis thought sex was a good thing. None of that abstinence and celibacy for them—that’s Christian. No ascetism, no celibacy. Judaism’s not really into celibacy. It thinks sex is natural, and beautiful, and sacred. Or that it should be anyway. There’s no guilt attached to it, really.”

“No guilt?” This makes him happy.

“Yeah.” I say, “Which is great. But then there’s that clause. The one that says that once you sleep with someone, you’re supposed to keep them.”

Get thee to a nunnery: Judaism doesn't require celibacy“For how long?” he asks. He’s a law student. He knows about clauses.

“Life.” I say, raising my eyebrows and shrugging.

“What do you think?” he asks.

I grin. “Remains to be seen,” I say, and return to my sushi.

Over the last three years, I have had this conversation on at least five different dates with five different men—all of them Jewish. Before rabbinical school, and before divinity school, my dates didn’t ask me about sex. But ever since I became “Jordie-the-almost-rabbi,” the men I’ve dated have been intensely curious about my sexuality and what Judaism does (or doesn’t) bring to bear on it. I’ve become—without my desire—a one-woman sexual ethics committee.

Dating never starts this way. It starts at a party, or a lecture, or a meeting. I meet someone new, I turn on my Jew-dar, we make small talk, he asks me what I study. I say religion. He says, “Oh really? What religion?” I say, “Christianity and Islam,” hoping to prolong the inevitable, and then I feel guilty and say more softly, “and Judaism.” If he’s obnoxious or pretentious, or if he has a sense of humor, I’ll add, “Circumcision and smiting, too.”

“What do you want to do with your degree in religion?” he asks.

“Become a rabbi,” I say.

If I like him, or think that I might, I’ll do whatever it takes not to tell him that.

“Oh,” he says, and goes quiet. He’s now picturing the rabbi at his home synagogue, comparing me to the bald guy with a gut who dresses up as a baseball player every Purim. “That’s intense,” he says. The R-bomb, it’s fail proof. It always shuts them up.

If he thinks I’m cute enough, if he’s not getting bible-beater vibes, he’ll continue, and then he’ll ask me out. Nothing like going out with the guys for a beer and telling them you’re dating a rabbi. A cute one, he’ll add. In tight jeans.

The erotic lure of religious leadership: From Leonard Nimoy's "Shekhina Project" (yes, THAT Leonard Nimoy)The eroticization of this profession is stunning. He’ll call me up from work and whisper, “Hey, Rabbi Gerson.” Flinching, I’ll look around for my father, Rabbi Gerson the first. The mystique of this profession turns him on. He thinks it’ll be like being in bed with God. He wonders if I’ll speak to him in Hebrew.

But far worse—and more common—are the men who fall for me but won’t touch me. For many Jewish men in their 20s, you can’t just date a rabbi. You have to be serious about her. This Madonna-whore complex has wreaked utter havoc on my dating life, and produced more conversations with the word ‘marriage’ in it than I want to recall. (“Marriage?!” I want to say, “Are you crazy? I just want to date you, for God’s sake. Just relax!”). But too many Jewish men think that they have to be serious—on-the-road-to-marriage serious—to even casually date me.

Even now, I’m still trying to figure out what serious means to these men, but I think it’s mixed up with the possibilities of what could happen when something as messy and complex as sex and sexuality becomes mixed up with God and what we hold most sacred. Sometimes I feel like the enormous ambivalence evoked by the meeting of divinity and sexuality is an ambivalence I provoke in the men that I date, and the repercussions of this have complicated or ended relationships that in any other universe would have been just great. There’s nothing as frustrating as dating a great guy who adores you but is afraid to touch you because he’s worried that he’ll incur the wrath of God. (Or be smote. Be careful when and with whom you joke about smiting.)

The bottom line is this: too many of the men I date make significant assumptions about me without getting to know me first. They assume I’m Shomer Negiah (I'm not), they assume I'm strictly Shomer Shabbat (I’m not), and they assume that my commitment to a lifetime of Jewish leadership makes me—or should make me—a Puritan. If I’m comfortable with my sexuality, they’re shocked. If I wear a low-cut shirt, they’re scandalized.

I’ve had my share of flings since graduating from college. Almost all of them—before rabbinical school—were with non-Jewish men. My relationships? With Jewish men exclusively. Believe me when I tell you I didn’t plan it this way, nor did I intend, for better or worse, for this to be the case. We don’t fall in love with people, even if our mothers would like it, because of the religion they were born into.

Amen, sister: Why doesn't Jewcy sell this shirt?But the non-Jews, they knew better. They knew that in my world they were not welcome, at least not for long. Well, by me, maybe, they’d be welcome. But not by the places I was going, and in the communities I would someday lead. Non-Jewish men assumed our relationship couldn’t become serious—and after the Jewish men who put me in the serious category automatically, this was an enormous relief. Ask first, I say. Because you don’t know.

Dating as a rabbinical student has made courtship—an ordinarily fraught, and occasionally painful endeavor—that much harder. It’s hard to ask men to see me as a woman first and clergy second. It’s hard to explain that I want to leave the baggage and blessings of my work at home (or at synagogue) when I’m on a date. And sometimes, as anyone who’s ever dated in New York City knows, it’s just hard.

By being enough of a feminist to train for the rabbinate, I’ve unintentionally saddled myself with age-old gender stereotypes, issues that the majority of women my age don’t have to address anymore. Questions about how to talk about my career—or whether to talk about it all—and issues surrounding how I dress, whom I date, and what I do on those dates crop up in ways that “Free To Be You and Me” never warned me about.

The problem is this: I’m not willing to give any of this up. Not my sexuality, not my spirituality, not my Judaism, and not my career. I want it all. And as a third-wave feminist, I want to believe that I can have it. I expect it. So mah la’asot? What to do?

For the moment, I’m working on kicking the “rabbi” word out of the room on dates. My title doesn’t belong on a date. It doesn’t belong between me and my lover. So these days, I’m looking for a man who can ignore it, or at least realize that this word is not me, that I am more than the sum of its parts. Then, I hope, he can get to know me as me and not as the role I will someday have.

1985. United Airlines flight 80, SFO to JFK, seat 4B. I am a child of divorce, en route to visit my father for the summer. I’m unwrapping my third Fruit Roll-Up and humming along to the Xanadu soundtrack when Gargamel and Zorro appear in the aisles, holding AK47’s and wearing dishdashas. “All Jewish children, please come to the front of the airplane,” one screams, “It is time for us to eat you in the name of Allah!”

I think of my passport. American. My last name. DiLiberto, Italian. My blue eyes. My light hair. They’ll never guess I’m Jewish. I can pass. I can live. I tighten my seatbelt as all the good little Jews march, silent and stoic, to the front of the plane. Even at ten years old, I know I am a coward. Those little Jewish children will go to heaven and I will languish here on Earth listening to my conscience.

Identity hijack: Would you come forward?Wait, do we—Jews, I mean—have heaven?

1985 was the year Uli Derickson saved a bunch of Jewish passengers on TWA flight 847 by hiding their passports. I became obsessed with the news story and spent hours contemplating what I would do if I found myself in a stand-up-and-be-counted situation. I used my mother as a sounding board.

“There’s no way they would know unless I told them, right? Think about it. My eyes. My name. I don’t seem Jewish.”

My mother would roll her own blue eyes at me. “There are plenty of Italian Jews. With blue eyes.”

“Yes, but it’s less obvious. That they’re Jewish.”

“This is a ridiculous conversation.”

“What I want to know is do I have to tell them? The hijackers? Do I have a moral obligation?” I have always loved catchphrases.

“While I hope you’re proud to be who you are, I don’t think any rabbi would argue with using any means necessary to preserve your life in an extraordinary situation.”

“But during the Holocaust—“

“This conversation is over. I’ll be on the airplane with you, and I’ll decide what we do.”

If only my mother could come with me on dates. Here’s the dirty truth: I am a play-it-down Jew. Recently, I was on my first date with a sleepy-eyed patrician lawyer. We were swapping tales of our childhoods. After I told him about growing up in San Francisco among hippies and crab mongers, he told me about his hometown of Dearborn, Michigan. I said I had heard it had the highest concentration of Arabs of any American city.

Dearborn's favorite son: Henry Ford“And it’s no coincidence,” he chortled. “It’s the most antisemitic place in the world! Because of Henry Ford.”

I nodded. Ford was on my Jewish stepfather’s list of famous Jew-haters, along with Vanessa Redgrave and Louis Farrakhan. Never would our family buy a Ford or rent “Blow Up” or attend a Nation of Islam rally.

“I had a friend when I was growing up in Dearborn whose house had a tile floor, and inlaid in the floor was a huge swastika mosaic! Can you believe that?” My lawyer laughed and took a swig of his martini.

I snorted uncomfortably. Why was he telling me this? He had no reason to suspect I was Jewish, did he? And was he outraged—or amused?—by his neighbors’ antisemitic interior decorating? I needed to make an interception before one or both of us were humiliated.

“Whoa, you don’t have anything against Jews, right? I mean, I’m part Jewish.”

Part Jewish?

My mother’s mother is Jewish, but her father is a Southern Baptist. My own father was Catholic, and although he didn’t protest when my mother insisted on raising her children as Jews, he loved to tease her by claiming he’d had me baptized while she was at the beauty parlor (better safe than sorry). So I’m actually only a quarter Jewish, but the right quarter.

When we were young, my father’s three Catholic sons from his first marriage all found it hilarious to refer to me, their only sister, as “the JAP.” On the other hand, I started getting “You don’t seem Jewish” in second grade at my Waspy all-girls school—from both the Wasps and the other Jewish girl. In Hebrew school, the principal snickered every time she had to say my Italian name. In college, the first and last time I ate dinner at Hillel House during Passover, two girls I knew socially whispered to me, with a giggle, “What are you doing here? You’re not really Jewish.”

It was confusing. To gentiles, my quarter-Jewishness defined me, the way just one drop of food coloring turns a gallon of water bright blue. But Jews rarely accepted me as one of their own. I was stuck, and reasoned my way out, moseying down the path of least resistance. There was no question which identity was easier to take on. Certainly not the one who was supposed to know thousands of prayers in an ancient language, or actually enjoy gefilte fish, or trade stories about a drunken confirmation trip to Israel I hadn’t gone on. When it came to the Jewish experience, I could never measure up.

Private prayer: Jesus is not my homeboyStill, I squirm if I find myself at a church service, whether at a wedding, a funeral, Midnight Mass, or on a trip to a foreign country. Private prayers buzz about inside my head: I do not accept Jesus as my savior, just because I’m here or anything. He was a really stellar citizen, not a savior. Well, some people’s savior, obviously, just not mine, per se. Shema, Y’israel… At my own father’s funeral: Do I kneel when the priest says to, like all the good Catholics? What am I supposed to do when my brothers take communion? Is it more disrespectful if I eat the wafer, or if I don’t? Will it affect my father’s ascent? Because if yes, I’m opening my mouth right now.

Oddly, I’ve always felt I belonged in synagogue. Not in youth groups or classes or that terrible post-service lox-stinking brunch room, but invisible in the sanctuary, listening to ancient prayers whose meaning I don’t necessarily know, but which still resonate in some place inaccessible to my rational mind.

Part Jewish? Everyone knows that Judaism is a matrilineal religion—if you bloom in a Jewish womb, like me, you‘re a Jew. Entirely, not “part.” Why hadn’t I just told Mr. O’Lawyer , “I’m Jewish?” Because I actually liked this guy, and I didn’t want to risk nipping our nascent relationship in the bud. I figured I’d let him fall in love with me first, then drop the J-bomb. I am deeply ashamed to admit it, but I fear that my Judaism is something a potential suitor might hold against me. Family lore has it that a dashing Princeton boy fell in love with my mother while she was still in high school. She says that after he found out she was Jewish, as they nibbled roast pork at his parents’ manor, he never called her again. When I was a prepubescent, this story felt like a cautionary tale. My mother was perfect! Her Jewishness had to be the reason this guy dropped her! It didn’t occur to me that she might have used the wrong fork at dinner, or that he might have been seeing an older girl at Princeton, or that—heaven forbid—he just wasn’t that into her. My ten-year-old take-away was this: Gallant, rich, important men don’t like Jewish girls.

So, some forty-odd years later, I took the implied lesson to heart: Keep the religion thing close to your chest. But come on—how long could I stay on the Down Low if this guy and I actually got into a real thing? (Well, for quite a while, come to think of it, seeing as how I’ve pretty much abstained from religious holidays since my bat mitzvah, and there’s the Italian name thing, and the Southern Baptist grandpa thing, and the fact that the only Jewish food I can stomach are those little chocolate-covered jellies you get on Passover…)

J-Bomb: To drop or not?But—aristocratic suitors aside—how could I live with myself without full disclosure? It scares me to think that I might compromise my identity—Jewish or otherwise—to snag a husband. Or that I think so little of the men I go out with that I assume they’re antisemitic. But I am ashamed to admit that I don’t want to seem “other,” part of some creepy, horn-hiding, baby sacrificing cult. Do I really think anyone still harbors these ridiculous ideas of Jewishness in 2007? Come on!

Beyond all the Jewbilation ale, Kabbalah bracelets, and VHI specials, we all know that Jews remain the warty fairytale villains of the global subconscious. I don’t need to tell you that “The Passion of the Christ” grossed more, domestically, than any other R-rated film in history, or that “The Protocols of Zion” is reportedly a bestseller at countless bodegas, or that many liberals and conservatives alike blame the United States’ Israel obsession for this horrible war we’re in. No wonder little Noni Horowitz changed her name to Winona Ryder.

My impulse to pass has less to do with self-loathing than an obsessive need to be loved. I’m sure if I were to date more Jewish guys, I would be belting out Dayenu at Passover, and not only at the table. But for some reason I rarely find myself breaking bread with a lantsman. They just don’t seem to go for me, whether it’s that I’m not Jewish enough or simply that I’m voluptuous (everyone knows that Jewish guys, no matter how robust themselves, are weight Nazis). Besides, am I even allowed to call myself a Jew? My looks, paired with my nonobservant background, have contributed to a lifelong sense of cognitive dissonance: At once, I feel too Jewish and not Jewish enough. My Jewish self turns her nose up at my gentile side, and vice versa.

On vacation alone last year, I became friends with a burly, married Italian named Tony. In the first five minutes of our acquaintance, we bonded over our last names (which both end in the classic “o”) and our identical philosophies on the cooking of Sunday red sauce (pork being the crucial ingredient). We took long daily walks, during which he expressed unhappiness over the state of his loveless marriage. I nodded sympathetically when he told me he had decided, as a Catholic, never to divorce, but to have clandestine affairs instead (he felt a strong sense of “duty” toward the institution of marriage). He had assumed that, as a DiLiberto, I was Catholic too, and I didn’t correct his assumption. (I mean, I am a little bit Catholic, right?) In this case, I wasn’t interested in romance, just acceptance—a sense of kinship with another lonely stranger. And I was afraid that, like many members of my own Italian family, my Italian buddy harbored deep-seated anti-Semitism.

It’s my pesky pathological need to be loved: if I sense someone might be uncomfortable around a member of the tribe, I play my Jewishness down. The converse works, too: In the company of observant Jews, I suddenly find myself making comments like, “I wish I could keep kosher!” or “There’s something so sexy about a well-placed yarmulke.” And I should say that this see, we’re just alike! proclivity extends beyond religious affiliation.

* * *

Mirror, mirror: Jewish from multiple anglesNeedless to say, Mr. Swastika Mosaic and I went nowhere—things fizzled after a few dates. It would be convenient to say he stopped calling when he found out I was Jewish (which was my mom’s belief, of course—this from a woman who erects a 1000-piece miniature Christmas village every November), or to explain that the swastika comment was enough to send me packing—but we made out after both revelations, so the burnout had nothing to do with principles. And there’s no question I am more ambivalent about my own Jewishness than he was.

I realized after things were over the absurdity of my tendency to play the Jew thing down: I could end up married to an antisemite. What would my unsuspecting hubby think when my mom insisted he watch my bat mitzvah video, or when my Yiddish-speaking Grandma attacked his cheeks? More important, how would I feel lying next to this man in the middle of the night, knowing I had cheated both of us out of the best thing marriage has to offer: total honesty without judgment? Probably the worst feeling would be the lifelong shudder of self-betrayal, shouldering the guilt of lying to terrorists on an airplane every day for the rest of my life. Thank God Judaism has a built-in honesty clause: even if I were to marry a bigot, his children would be, officially, Jewish. An eighth, but the right eighth.

Fifteen years ago, before the death of irony and cassette tapes, I fell in love with a girl while living on a kibbutz in Israel. At least it felt like love at the time. Like the affair itself, my arrival in Israel was an act of happenstance. I had just dropped out of law school, veering from a path that had been carefully cultivated by my parents since I was in the fifth grade. This semi-rebellious act left me rootless and ready to take on the world. I was looking to travel to any place, so long as it was away from home. Israel was not the only foreign port that beckoned me forth, but it was warm and far away and full of Significance. At the time, it existed for me more as a mythic abstraction than a geographic reality.

The start of the affair: Slacker + international intrigueFor years my father had been keenly focused on this tiny sliver of land, though I never really understood why. As is the case with many American Jews, Israel influenced his voting behavior, his philanthropic choices and even the books he read. Any decision was justifiable so long as it benefited the Holy Land. Thanks to this cultural cover, it was an easier sell to my parents than Telluride or Prague, other favored destinations for clichéd wanderers at the time. But my decision to move to a kibbutz wasn’t motivated by my father’s political myopia. I was just after the Zionist dream of living communally, turning the desert into a garden, and hooking up with adventurous young Scandinavians who volunteered for kibbutz life as a cheap way to extend world tours.

As it turned out, I never had the chance to enjoy that last rite-of-passage. On nearly my first day on the kibbutz, I fell madly in lust with Leah, an outspoken South African with pale blue eyes and lustrous auburn hair. She was fresh off six months of teaching art to Palestinian children in the West Bank, and her Johannesburg accent gave her an exotic, sophisticated air. This was a woman who had spent a year touring Europe as a member of a punk trio after graduating from one of England’s finest boarding schools. Had Graham Greene been asked write a sequel to Slacker, Leah could have been his female protagonist. I was in love with her at first sight—or with the idea of her, which was, frankly, the same thing to me back then.

As in college and prison, time spent on a kibbutz is catalyzed by severe insularity. Leah and I were together nearly every hour of every day. There were few literal or figurative walls of any kind, so our relationship simply leapt into existence without the incremental steps of courtship. Within three weeks I had moved into her living space, a large cabin at the far end of the volunteers’ compound. Luckily, she had not been assigned a bunkmate, so we pushed two rickety twin beds together and built a makeshift honeymoon suite.

This spontaneity was exactly what I was looking for after the bloodless experience of law school, not to mention my previous relationships. The girlfriend I’d had prior to leaving for Israel wanted nothing more than to settle down and live in a midwestern suburb. Leah was different from the other women I’d been with, most of whom didn’t own electric guitars or the complete works of Hunter S. Thompson. She was uninterested in defining our relationship, and she seemed unburdened by the concept of dating with a specific end goal in mind.

Nice work if you can get it: An avocado fieldThanks to the sub-tropical heat of the Israeli summer, clothes were optional, a situation that was tailor-made (so to speak) for young lovers anxious to explore their “cultural commonalities.” Leah and I formed a community of two, falling into a shared life. Our work took us to different parts of the kibbutz—she toiled in a dog food factory while I had to good fortune to work in the sun-drenched avocado fields—but in our free time we were inseparable. We tended to skip the group social activities in favor of our cozy co-habitation, reading, playing “shesh besh”, and indulging in the kibbutz’s main source of live entertainment: drinking cheap vodka while sitting around a bonfire.

But all was not milk and honey in our enchanted garden. Leah was a diehard proponent of Palestinian liberation, and she felt that any Israeli presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was illegal, immoral and unjustified. She also contended that the military support provided by the United States to Israel made