Jewish: November 2004 Archives

November 25, 2004

I have to say I've missed reading my weekly e-mail updates from Dei'ah vdDibur. Today I found out that "content cell phones" are "wreaking spiritual havoc." Apparently, the dangers cell phone are so great, that even the public announcement doesn't say what they are. At any rate, the Hareidi community is implored to safeguard their children's purity and of course, "the deference to gedolei Yisroel shlita."

So basically, the "Torah TrueTM" Hareidi educational system itself isn't enough to instill the appropriate values such that the bochrim themselves cannot be trusted with temptation and the only solution is to ban anything that might cause "agmas nefesh."

Who knew Hareidim were closet Democrats?

Also, it seems that there was a scandal in which a government report claimed that Hareidi schools received two or three times the amount of their secular counterparts. It also seems that this report was flawed in several ways. DvD Editor Mordechai Plaut recaps the hows and why of the mistakes, and even appeals to "the first rule that beginning students of statistics learn."

Plaut's argument implies that math might actually be important. However, we know from his newsletter that teaching math and all of its subversiveness will ultimately destroy the Hareidi community.

Does this mean it's now assur to read his column?

What if I get it on my cell phone?



November 21, 2004



Introduction

Anyone part of a "single's scene" knows how difficult it is to find that special someone with whom you can spend the rest of your life. Bars and mixers might help put similar people in the same room, but such forums rarely result in successful relationships. To help narrow down the field of compatible singles, some entrepreneurs took advantage of the Internet, resulting in sites like Match.com or E-Harmony.

Jewish dating is perhaps even more difficult for a myriad of reasons which won't be discussed here. Still, there are some Internet dating sites created specifically for the Jewish community, such as JDate, Jewish Caf�, Future Simchas and Frumster.

Like many other on-line dating services, singles complete profiles which contain generic information as well as some space for the individuals to elaborate. When singles search for other singles, they do so on specialized fields - each depending on the particular site. For example, Frumster allows one to search based on such fields as education, height, body type, and religious observance. However, with Frumster one can be certain of a minimum degree of observance, as it is the only one which serves the Orthodox community exclusively.

During one of my random Frumster searches I noticed that there were more women in my results page who were divorced. I found this odd since the age range for which I was searching was up until 30 years old. What bothered me wasn't that divorce's were suggested. I don't believe that someone divorced should be any less of an option than anyone else. Furthermore, there are cases such as abuse where divorce would be the obviously preferable option - the sooner the better. However, there is an unfortunate stigma against being divorced, and for divorce's Frumster might be the only option. There are many questions which need to be asked to interpret the meaning of any phenomenon.

What occurred to me that Frumster could be a useful resource for obtaining Orthodox Jewish sociological data, necessary to at least begin to understand what is happening within our community.



November 10, 2004

This will be the final post in the impossibly named series I called Rabbi Week. Today, I'd like to discuss what I consider to be the major misconception of the Rabbinate, and wrap things up with some thoughts as to what the future might hold.





Meta-YUTOPIA

Valid XHTML 1.0!    Valid CSS!

Site Meter

XML  RSS
ATOM
J-Blogosphere
JRants
Judaism Blogs - Blog Catalog Blog Directory
Blog Directory

Creative Commons License
This blog is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

Listed on BlogShares

This website is powered by
Movable Type