SWMBT Seeks SJFFFB/BT

Written by Manya Treece

The Romantic Trials of Newly Orthodox Jews

When 23-year-old Debi Horowitz decided to live as an Orthodox Jew, her mother was horrified. “She was afraid I would marry some abusive…man, drop out of school, get… pregnant, and be miserable for the rest of my life.”
In the Orthodox Jewish community, Horowitz is known as a ba’alat teshuva, or BT, if you're in the know. The Hebrew term literally means “master of return/repentance,” and describes any Jew who was not raised in an Orthodox home but chose Orthodox observance later in life. Along with their frum-from-birth (“frum” meaning “observant” in Yiddish), or FFB, counterparts, BTs who are actively seeking spouses face a host of unique challenges.

For Dalia Naamani-Goldman, a 21-year-old BT, “having a Reform rabbi…for a father complicates relationships considerably. It almost would be easier if I had no Jewish background at all.”

Sherry Zimmerman, columnist for Aish.com and co-founder of Jewishdatingandmarriage.com concurs, and elucidates BTs' main struggles. FFBs may rule out BTs as potential partners, she says, and they often have legitimate reasons. Commonly heard deterrents include the BT’s non-Orthodox family, which may be unappealing if an FFB hopes to keep future offspring from non-Orthodox influence. Other turn-offs include fears that a newly-observant partner has deeply held non-Orthodox notions about family life or even Judaism itself.

Yet another, Zimmerman says, is the usual disparity in levels of Jewish literacy, which sometimes denies the FFB the chance to serve as “a partner, not a teacher.” Another less publicly addressed hindrance is anxiety over the BT’s sexual past.

According to Zimmerman, “Once someone knows too many [sexual] details, they visualize, and it turns them off.” Zimmerman advises concerned BTs to discuss how much information they disclose about their pasts to a potential partner with a rabbi or other religious advisor, and emphasizes that teshuva, or repentance, enables each BT to live an Orthodox lifestyle without any shame about his or her past.

Without having grown up in communities rife with potential spouses, BTs often turn to rabbis, community members, matchmaking, and, like the rest of us, the Internet.

Sites such as Frumster.com and Sawyouatsinai.com have sprouted up to provide observant Jews with a self-selective dating pool. Whereas the ever-popular Jdate.com offers categories that distinguish between “Orthodox (Baal Teshuva)” and “Orthodox (Frum),” the Orthodox sites get deeper into the nitty-gritty, asking, for example, how many times per day users pray and what sort of head covering women are interested in wearing upon marriage.

Although the sites enable FFBs and BTs to check each other out before committing to a date, BTs often end up dating and marrying one another.
“BTs tend to be more understanding of the challenges other BTs face and often understand what it means to have a complex background,” Horowitz reflects. “BTs come with talents and personalities and interests very similar to mine…and they come with a love for Torah and a strong desire to grow towards Hashem [God], which is so inspiring.”

For the time being, it looks like 2BT may just be the BT romantic formula of choice.

Comments

Add New

< Prev		Next >

[ Back ]

Current Issue

Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.