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| Written by Jon Hofer | |||||
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Internet Dating For All It is perhaps inevitable that as an increasingly modern society fragments people and breaks down preexisting social structures, we seek to use the very culprits of this fragmentation to try and reconnect. Nothing exemplifies this trend better than proliferation of Jewish focused social and dating sites. While Jewish dating sites have long been prime fodder for jokes and social observations (Jdate was recently the subject of a class discussion at Harvard Law School) there is something uniquely ironic about them that merits their constant analysis. The use of the Internet as a mainstream social tool is a well documented reality. One only needs to look at the enormous membership of sites like facebook.com and myspace.com to realize that the web has become a means of socialization that no one could ever have predicted when it was first created by the defense department. A quick look around at other computer screens in my law classes often shows many people on facebook.com as actively participating. Jews, always early adopters, however, have taken this trend even farther than most. Sites like jdate.com and frumster.com have, whatever their other attributes, successfully mapped Jewish life onto 21st century realities, serving much the same function that Jewish single nights served a generation ago. This however is not to say that these realities are gone. Almost every major metropolitan area has its own Jewish singles scenes and events. In addition the interests and statements slots that exist on virtually any dating site profile, these Jewish sites make room for communicating one’s level of religious observance identity, from Modern Orthodox-liberal to Modern Orthodox-machmir (strict), to Hasidic. Something about mapping the needs and urges of the world’s oldest religion onto the modern world, however, is endlessly fascinating. Where the shtetls of Europe once made Jewish dating a simple matter, one that truthfully had little if any choice to it, today’s Jewish cohort has taken modernity by the horns, endowing the process with an unprecedented level of choice.
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