The J-Blogosphere: Good for the (Frum) Jews?

Lately it seems as though every New York media outlet I read has something to say about subjects related to shidduchim or other topics of frum interest.

DISCLAIMER: I do not identify as frum; I identify as Conservadox, which is American for confused. Nevertheless, I have frum friends, and I read frum blogs, and I have common sense, so I think that I can sketch this out broadly. Please let me know if anything seems horribly off-key.

First, there was the New York Jewish Week article in which one of my favorite bloggers, Bad4shidduchim, aka Bad4, was profiled. I think that the article failed to capture Bad4's wit but was otherwise pretty positive. Bad4's regular posters, some of whom know her personally, agreed. Then, taking her shidduch article to a paper that some people actually pay for and read, the same journalist who interviewd Bad4 wrote a more general article for The Wall Street Journal called "Single Jewish Female Seeks Stress Relief." That article highlighted some of the less pleasant aspects of the shidduch process (all of which the writer seems to have gotten from reading Bad4's blog, but who in journalism cares about attribution?), including that there are more dating gals than guys, which creates: 1) a series of women who can't marry and are considered old maids at 25; 2) really demanding "learning boys" and their even more demanding mothers, who sometimes insist on interviewing the "girl" before they will let their sons interrupt learning to date her; and 3) male "serial daters" who can and will date women as young as 18 for years because they can, and because they are afraid of making a mistake and ending up divorced. I am skeptical about the last one, since what 18-year-old would date a 30-year-old? As far as I understand it, 18-year-old girls are considered quite marriageable, and 30-year-old "bochurim" are considered, at the very least, weird. Anyway, the seemingly insane degree of background checking and labeling that goes on before the first date is also mentioned.

Charedi/yeshivish bloggers' reactions to The Wall Street Journal article seemed to range from "yeah, that's us," to "yeah, can you believe that's us? G-d help us." MY reaction was, Isn't this bad for the Jews, at least for Jews who participate in the shidduch "System"? And what about the Jews, like me, who are considered "Orthodox" by their non-Jewish friends--and some of the Jewish ones as well--because they are Shomrei Shabbat, and they don't live in New York, and people are ignorant? Now, instead of asking me whether I am going to have a million (read: 3) kids, since I can't use birth control (yes, I have gotten that question), people will ask me whether I put my boyfriend through a CIA background check before our first date. (Oh, yeah, JDate has that extra James Bond application).

Does anyone think that shidduchim would have made it into The Wall Street Journal without the J-Blogosphere? I don't. The J-Blogosphere provides too many research-free opportunities for journalists to get quick articles before their deadlines (on posts from Bad4 overlapping with subjects in the article, see here, here, and here).

I would also like to point out that, where I live, I have a number of out-of-town Modern Orthodox, Conservadox, and Conservative (labels are helpful sometimes) friends who read Charedi/yeshivish blogs and discuss them at Shabbat meals. By "discuss," I mostly mean that they say, "Can you believe these crazies?" Favorite non-shidduch internet proof of craziness usually centers on issues of: kashrut (keeping kosher), tznius (modesty), and chumrahs (customary stringencies that many people, including rabbis, now treat as halakhah, Jewish law) in general. When I say kashrut, I don't mean actually keeping kosher; I mean water-filtering, avoidance of raw fruits and vegetables even without the CDC scare, and Chalav Yisrael. By "tznius," I don't mean wearing long skirts and long sleeves; I mean Israeli "mehadrin" buses, Israeli women in burkas, and total separation of the sexes before marriage. By chumrahs, I mean what FrumSatire calls "the chumrah-of-the-month club." I think that's self-explanatory. I wouldn't know about 90% of these "crazy" things without the J-Blogosphere. I try to avoid these conversations, but they are going on. I predict that this Shabbat, the New York article on the woman who left Kiryas Joel will be the J-Blogosphere-inspired topic of conversation.

I know that Jews have found ways to hate each other for millenia without the help of the Jewish Blogosphere. (And in case anyone wants to accuse non-Orthodox Jews of hating the Orthodox for the fun of it, let me assure you that it's mutual. If I had a dollar for every time I read a hateful comment directed against Conservative and Reform Jews on a blog, I could drop out of grad school and eat bon-bons all day. These discussions also take place at dinner tables and would continue to occur even without the J-Blogosphere).

I also know that the J-Blogosphere provides much-needed outlets for frustrated people to express their frustration and anger, often at their own communities. The Charedi/yeshivish community, of course, is not monolithic: there is a silent majority that wants change, just as there is in every community. And I firmly believe it's their business, at least in the US. The taxpayers don't pay guys to learn full time, and people are free to leave.

But will it really remain their business if they are broadcasting it to the (at least Jewish) world?

This Is Why People Have Blogs

. . . so that they can rant about things that were bothering them last month (June) and will not be even remotely revelant until next June. So here it is:

If you are even remotely considering advertising a June jazz event with the words "We jazz June," please consider the poem from which it comes, "We Real Cool." The African-American poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) published this poem as part of a collection in 1963:

We Real Cool
THE POOL PLAYERS
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL

We real cool.
We Left school. We

Lurk late.
We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We Die soon.
____________________________________________________________________

Take-home point: Promoting your family jazz celebration in the park in June with a poem about the urban racialized poor and their imminent demise=bad.

Boyfriends and Blogs

TC and I have been back together for about two-and-a-half months, and I felt for the first time on Sunday that it is serious now. Please get your minds out of the gutter; this was not because we had sex or anything. I was visiting my parents, who live near TC, for a few weeks, and we were able to see each other more often than about once every two weeks, and things just feel . . . intense, if I had to sum it up in a word. This isn't bad. It's weird, in a good way, not to mention good, in a weird way, and it's kind of overwhelming, but, humble reader, I have an even more important (in cyber-space terms) question for you:

Do I have to tell TC about my blog?

He doesn't know it exists yet, which I tend to think is a good idea, since I have already blogged about: 1) our previous relationship; 2) my conflicted feelings for The Shaigetz, which I realize now didn't amount to anything but a certain type of frustration; and 3) his mother. I don't know if he would care about 1), and I could delete posts pertaining to 2) and 3), but then what's the point of having a blog? If I had a diary, I don't think I would share it with him. If I talk about him to my parents, brother, or BFF, I don't necessarily tell him. I realize there is a difference, though, because others read this blog, and a few even know who I am and therefore who he is, although many don't. I could keep my blog and limit my posts to those relating to Judaism and politics, but I have gotten kind of attached to sharing my not-hugely-interesting dating stories in the blogosphere.

So, I wasn't thinking of telling him right away, but what's the etiquette on this? I am not worried about "getting caught" because he is very NOT computer-savvy and never reads blogs; this is more an issue of mutual respect. How serious does it have to get before it's inappropriate for me NOT to tell him? And then I guess I should sanitize my blog first?

Coupled

I realize that much of this is not new, but it's pretty new to me. My experience, my blog, you know.

Usually, when I visit TC in New York over Shabbat, we go to his regular minyan for Shacharit. In that minyan, most of the people are old enough to be my (or TC's) parents. I also happen to know a few of these parentally-aged types. They are pleased that TC and I are together, but it's pretty low-key. I enjoy meeting TC's co-minyanites, just as I hope, when he is in town, he likes to make the acquaintance of my friends.

Last Shabbat, though, the regular minyan was having a special service that we (or at least I) didn't want to go to. So we went to Hadar (a post-denominational but essentially Conservative minyan founded by young people who are now in their mid-30's, although there are younger folks there, too). I had gone to Hadar when I lived in NYC right out of college, and I had never found it particularly friendly. I knew a few people from college and around the Upper West Side, but I never felt like I had an "in" there. I ended up going to another minyan (or two) regularly.

This time, when TC and I went to Hadar, the place had a totally feel. I felt like people were finally treating me like a whole person, now that I was part of a couple. I had several long conversations with people (people I already knew, but I still felt like I belonged). I knew more people there than I had before (people from where I live now who had moved to NYC, mostly), and of course I was more confident, with boyfriend in tow. I realize there are a number of variables here. But I still think that people closer to my age treat me differently now that I am "coupled." I told this to one of my Charedi/yeshivish friends, who is also old enough to be my mom. She was surprised, because she thought that since Hadar is all egalitarian and everything, people wouldn't be hung up on that. Ha! We're still Jewish, right? But it does raise of the question: if we're so egalitarian and progressive, why do we think women are missing something if they don't have a man?

Shavuot Musings, or Lack Thereof

Shavuot is coming up on Sunday night. This is the holiday on which we celebrate the Revelation and giving of the Torah at Sinai (I believe in the Revelation; in terms of exactly what was given, I am not touching that on this blog with a ten-foot pole).

Anyway, I have noticed from reading blogs and seeing people's Facebook status updates--hey, I'm a grad student, so I don't always go outside--that some people are talking about readying themselves for Shavuot, preparing to bring their neshamot (souls) up as high as possible for the time when they will receive the Torah again. Even though I am a (religious) rationalist who would rather think of mitzvot than her neshamah, not that the two are mutually exclusive, I find all this talk of musings and preparations for the holiday quite nice.

I also find that it makes me feel guilty. When I think of Shavuot, I think of: 1. where I will eat meals, and how many dishes I have to prepare beforehand for me and/or potlocks; 2. how disgusting my hair is going to be on the second day; 3. how bored and or/hot (temperature-wise)I will probably be by Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes I also think about and get kind of excited for my community's Tikkun Leil Shavuot (staying up all night to study Torah) and a few of the shiurim (lessons) that I have seen on the tentative schedule, so that's good. But then my mind wanders to logistics: Should I go for mincha (afternoon prayers), or wait to go over until dinner and then stay for some shiurim? How late will I be able to stay up? I should really make a donation to the sponsoring group, etc. Not exactly elevated thinking.

I talked about this with my BFF this morning, and she said that it is only natural to feel this way, since that is how our ancestors thought about the holiday, too. Even though we now have modern technology, money, and butcher shops, only really special, high energy people who are not writing dissertations can do both. That reminded me of a d'var Torah I once heard from a woman who used to be yeshivish and married to a yeshivah bochur (full-time Talmud student) and now is not religious like that anymore. She talked about slaving over holiday meals for her husband and his fellow yeshivah bochurim and then having one of them say at her table, "I really enjoy yontif (holidays) because they're so relaxing." She thought, "Yeah, right, for those who have food served to them."

My mom told me that this was an anti-feminist statement when I said something similar in a slightly different context, but I think that the traditional division of labor is not particularly conducive to women having deep thoughts about yontif in the days before. Now that many men in my community help with food preparation and so forth, one possibility is that both parties feel like they have a little more time to reflect. The other possibility is that, now, everyone's head is full of blintzes and logistics (mmmm . . . logistics), and only those who are teaching at the Tikkun are thinking about texts, and it is largely because they are forced to. (Although I realize that some people volunteer for the Tikkun in order to motivate themselves to study texts and think about the holiday, which I think is very admirable).

So, does anyone else feel this way? What do you do about it? (Please don't tell me that I CAN, in fact, wash my hair on yontif. I'm not doing that right now, and it's not the point, anyway).

Enough already, Hillary!

I don't usually blog about political issues, because everyone else is doing it, but I am getting to be crazed (I hope not literally) by Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama has won the nomination. He has the requisite number of delegates. What is Hillary doing? She's "considering her options." What options are those? I hope she's busy writing a speech in which she says something like, "I encourage all of my supporters to support Senator Obama in the fall, since we have to take back the White House, AND ANYWAY OUR POLICY POSITIONS ARE NEARLY IDENTICAL!!!!" I just watched the beginning of the Today show, and one of her staffers was on. Matt Lauer showed him the headline from the Washington Post today. It said something like, "Obama Wins Nomination," and asked, "Is this headline accurate or inaccurate?" The staffer couldn't give him a direct answer, even when Matt asked him again.

A few weeks ago in the New Yorker, Hendrik Herzberg wrote that the Clinton campaign had reached an almost mystical phase, in which her decision to drop out no longer had anything to do with the change she had to win. And that was before Obama had actually clinched the nomination! And they still won't concede. Incredible! AND, I think this vice-presidential thing is just a distraction by her people to get more attention.

Hillary Clinton, please concede gracefully and urge your supporters to support Obama before you do even more damage to his campaign. McCain was already starting to recruit your supporters last night!

ON AN UNRELATED NOTE: Since I'm in the realm of politics, I would like to wish Ted Kennedy a refuah shleimah (full recovery). He did something horrible a long time ago, and, it's true, if he were not a Kennedy, he might have gone to jail, although he would not have done that much time. I believe in teshuvah (it's a complicated term, but let's go, in one word, with "repentance"), and I think that his tireless work in the Senate over the past four decades has demonstrated a commitment to be an upright, contributing citizen who advocates on behalf of the poor, disenfranchised, and usually ignored. As I heard on TV, it's hard to imagine the Senate without him.

On his surgery: The cable news networks have been tying themselves into pretzels trying to explain his surgery, and the fact that he was awake. Maybe I remember too much old TV, but it seems simplest to me to compare it to the surgery that Dr. Mark Greene had on the TV show ER 5-7 seasons ago. He, too, had a tumor in Broca's area, which controls speech, and he had experimental surgery in which he was awake the whole time. I think that a good number of TV viewers remember that episode. That would have been my idea for a news segment, anyway.

Misheberach Issue

In case you are wondering what happened to TC and me at his parents' this weekend, you can see the post here.

Now, onto something else I have been thinking about on and off lately:

I try to add the names of people needing misheberachs (prayers for the sick) to my prayers (I pray once a day on weekdays and 2-3 times a day on Shabbat). I sometimes get these names from e-mail lists I am on, Facebook groups, or newspaper articles about Israeli terror victims. The problem is that, since I don't know many of these people or their relatives personally, I don't know when they no longer need the misheberachs, either because they (God forbid) died, or because they are well. (For example, does Nadav Eliahu ben Hadassah, the victim of the Mercaz HaRav yeshivah attack, still need the misheberach that was requested 2-and-a-half months ago?). The truth is, even when the misheberach is for the grandparent of someone with whom I am friendly, I can hardly go up to the person and say, So, is your grandfather still alive? Obviously, I could ask how the relative is doing, but I am afraid of upsetting the person.

Do other people have this problem? And, if so, what do you do about it? Should there be a six-month cut-off point or something? I am of the opinion that even if someone has a chronic illness, I will not say a misheberach for him or her indefinitely--only if he or she is in the hospital or otherwise gets worse. But that is more information than I usually have.

I will open this up to responses and suggestions from the gallery (and please, nothing cheeky about how the majority of people on synagogue misheberach lists are dead--that's not helpful).