We all love to hate shadchanim and the latest news that rates for their services is giving people another reason to hate on them, but I just don’t agree. I myself haven’t been to too many professional shadchanim, but when you say professional you are summing up the fact that they have decided to go into this time honored profession, and nothing in life is free – even getting hooked up with your marriage partner.
An article on Ynet which was picked up by Vos Iz Neias detailed the new prices for a successful shidduch. We should remember that shadchanim are kind of like real estate brokers in that you pay nothing if your match isn’t found, seems that no one takes that into consideration when throwing flames at shadchanim.
Have any of you ever tried to make a shidduch? Its absolute hell and besides for the fame and possibility of getting laid, I have no idea why anyone would want to go into the professional shadchan game. Especially in a shidduch crisis when less matches are being made, the money must not be so great, enter in the payment plans that people in financial crisis probably work out with the shadchan who finds them a match must have terribly high interest rates.
Anyone can point out that shadchanim have it tough, beneath their judgmental “does your family have a white tablecloth?” and “Do you stack or scrape?” ridiculousness, I am sure their lies a kind hearted individual who lives off her husbands hard earned cash in order to be a paid yenta. But seriously folks, I don’t think we realize how tough shadchans have it.
You have those nebach guys who will only go out with a smoking hot girl, visa versa, or those people who only want someone 2 years 10 months older than them. Maybe you’re the ugliest guy in the world and you only date size 0 blonde bombshells (an impossibility on an eastern European diet – and therefore not frum) Maybe size 4 is fat to you, I have a good friend who calls girls who are 25 pounds overweight morbidly obese, so interesting to check out girls with someone who finds everyone fat.
Now tell me people, do you actually want to deal with this crap? For Free? Does anyone expect shadchanim to be free? Yes you have these newlywed BaisYaakov girls who want to hook all of their friends up for the first few years they are married, until they realize how miserable they are and then try to convince everyone to date longer then 7 dates.
So the price in Israel for a shadchan is $1000 for each of the two parties getting married. The price doesn’t go up or down depending on how many girls/guys it took before you found the one – of course everyone knows that the Charedi system is much different than ours in that societal pressure dictates that if you aren’t married by age 19 you are seriously flawed and must go to internet cafes to look at porn (everyone does this – but its so much more sensational when Charedim do it and Vos Iz Neias loves to piss people off)
Apparently there are shadchaim with very high fees, the article talks about one that charges $10,000 and to me its more the luxury than anything else, she wines and dines you, gives you a massage and probably sponsors your wedding benchers with her ads. I heard about a shadchan on the upper east side that required you take her out to eat so she could see your people skills and manners, I would have failed miserably.
Oh and did I mention that working Charedi families pay more than yeshiva students. This sounds like a liberal agenda to me, kind of like taxing the rich and letting the poor go scot free, and of course people are wondering why the working boys have to pay more, but its really logistical – they aren’t as frum and therefore harder to set up, duh!
I still think they should outsource shadchanim to India!
Other shadchan posts:
Shadchanim are like used car dealers
-->
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Scrap the shadchan system. We got by perfectly well without it for a couple thousand years, back when parents use to be involved instead of some power hungry yente broker.
With modern technology, it’s really unnecessary, TRS can attest to that.
$1000???? It sounds more like an escort service then anything else.
If only shadchanim provided you with escort services it would be so much better
and then you would always come back for more. Shaddchunim would become extremly popular
Ok, can someone tell me about this scraping/stacking question? I keep hearing references to it and I have no idea what it means. I carry my plate to the garbage and just tilt the bones off, since the bones are muktza. Then I put the plates in the kitchen to be cleaned after shabbat. Am I a scraper or a stacker?
Scraping/stacking refers to scraping all the leftovers off the different plates to one plate at the table and then stacking them up. I guess its a no-no. You do neither, I think you are a shaddchuns dream.
Phil writes:
Scrap the shadchan system. We got by perfectly well without it for a couple thousand years, back when parents use to be involved instead of some power hungry yente broker.
With modern technology, it’s really unnecessary, TRS can attest to that.
Good point. But who needs “modern technology”. Parents, cousins, friends, co-workers and so on can all get Girl A introduced to Boy B. That’s what friends and relatives have been doing since we came down from the trees. And what’s wrong with the kids having a say? They’re the poor slobs who have to live with the results.
It all smacks of people being sold like cattle.
2 prili writes:
$1000???? It sounds more like an escort service then anything else.
Pretty close but with a hell of a lot less honesty. The shaddchan is selling sex, but it isn’t even her own tail she’s peddling. She’s pimping some poor virgins’ shmekele and girl-parts. If you’re paying thousands of dollars for sex you should at least expect a professional performance.
Do what I want, pay me and toe the line or you don’t get any, EVER! What professional dominatrix ever had a better line?
Hmm, it looks like my reply got swallowed by the Database Dybbuk. I’ll wait a bit and see if it gets coughed up. Suffice it to say, I’ve never seen sex for sale where both parties getting laid paid someone else for the privilege other than the $50 plus a dinner that couples usually slip to the rabbi.
Well, other than the modern worldview, interest in secular philosophy, graduate school, reasoning like a conservative…other than that I’m a shadchan’s dream.
in order to stack without creating more work for the dish washer, you need to scrape (or tilt). It also makes carrying them into the kitchen easier. what a bizarre question.
in order to stack without creating more work for the dish washer, you need to scrape (or tilt). It also makes carrying them into the kitchen easier. what a bizarre question.
There are plenty of more ludicrous questions being asked
Sorry had to comment on this:
“I am sure their lies a kind hearted individual who lives off her husbands hard earned cash in order to be a paid yenta.”
I know it’s just an example, but I had to mention that a good chunk of these paid yentas are male. Just sayin’.
If you were looking for a job, you would network: Try to find as many people as you can to help you find one.
If you’re looking for a shidduch, it’s the same thing, but instead of an employment agency, you go to a shadchan. Why? Because it works sometimes, even if it doesn’t work for everyone all the time.
I wish someone would pay me 1000$ for listening to my sage advice, and getting bother them when they dont. Sounds like fun.
Those ten grand shadchanim are the real deal. One of them offered my uncle a shidduch made for that sum. Thank God, he had more sense than that. To me that was one of the most demeaning things I could’ve heard. As if every shidduch isn’r worth that much. As if shidduchim are money at all…
No FD, this isn’t the same at all. Finding a spouse is something people all over the world have done for themselves since the beginning of time. This perversion takes control over the most important and intimate choices and turns it into a pay-for-play exercise in truly fascist social control.
Well the pain in the ass it is to make a shidduch means its a high price for a professional.
If I remember correctly the fee according to the Talmud is 6 or 8% of net assets. So that runs between a net worth of 16,666 to 12,500 respectively. Just think of your net assets… clothing car furniture computer stock portfolio old baseball card collection that is 15 years old and that really nifty chewing gum collection.
This price hike could always be attributed to the devaluation of the US dollar because of printing of money from our current president… after all the exchange rate went from 4.1 NIS for a dollar down to 3.9… you got to make it up some how.