Obviously everyone’s talking about it, but I have yet to see more then anyone talking about. If you pick up any charedi publication like the Yated, Binah, Mishpocha, etc… you will see whole issues devoted to this so called crisis. But a quick look at the Jewish Press, World Jewish Digest, Forward, Jewish Week, etc… will reveal that it seems the only people talking about the crisis are yeshiva/charedi type people. Funny because the last time I looked, the large communities of single were made up of people fairly removed from Mishpocha Magazine’s readership.
In the Charedi world it doesn’t seem to be progressing in light of the shidduch crisis. You rarely hear about frummies meeting through the internet, singles events etc… rather the age old matchmaker with ridiculous questions is still the method of choice. Girls get redd to a boy and then they go through a rsearch project longer then some PhD dissertations- to find out that the girls Grandfather wasn’t frum and there goes weeks of back round checks.
I am not writing this to talk about those stupid checks, stupid questions and ridiculous wants and desires. I just want to know where this so called crisis is? When they discovered it? Because it seems like every few years the papers need something to talk about. Anyone remember kids at risk, bugs in water, bigs in veggies, Indian sheitles?
If someone were to tell me there are more single then ever, I would say that I have to disagree. I grew up going to singles shabbatons with my dad, they have always had them. Just now you have a proliferation of young girls- convinced by their communities that 22 is old- online and writing about their sorrows. There are numerous “I am in the shidduch parshah” blogs, and they are almost always written by yeshivish/BY type girls, who are jealous that their friends are getting married- and then we all the sudden have a crisis, to make everyone rage with fear or the problem. No solutions of course as of yet.
Jen emailed me this comment from the yeshiva world news- if this is what we are dealing with, this “crisis” will only get worse.Original Article!
Confused in Teanek!!
Im really confused about you! I closely followed the articals in the Hamodia since i am obviously up to that stage. I agree that there are many stigmas in shidduchim that are compelely unfounded and untrue. However, i totally and completely disagree with you comment that a working boy is not a stigma! Of course it is! Working boys are second class citizens. A boy’s tachlis on this earth is to learn and delve into Hashem’s heilige torah! He should be constantly swaeting adn toiling in Torah. My heart cries for all these bums who have seeped to such low levels that they have actually left the the torah learning and have entereed the goyesha work field. Don’t they realize how wrong that is!! I daven for them every day that they should realize how wrong they are and how messed up they are! There is absolutely no reason at all why they are sitting behind a desk all busy with work instead of sitting in a bais hemedrish learning and shteiging in Torah.
I went to one of the top institutions in Eretz Yisroel and learned so much and one thing that our teachers repeated over and over again and engrained in our blood that we must marry a learning boy! They have much better yiras shamayim and more derech eretz than those working boys. Learning boys are much better off and are great boys. I would never be able to marry a working boy becuase i feel that i would never be able to respect him at all since he stooped to the the level of working! I think that NO ONE should begin working until there is absolutely no money left in the mother’s pocketbook and there is only moldy bread left on the shelves. Until that happens, then the husband should be sitting in the bais hamedrish.
I know that many poeple will not be happy with this letter adn think that its extreme, however thes are the values that i was engraiend in seminar, and i feel that i don’t have to compromise. The person as mentioned above in the letter will have a harder time with shidduchim so unfortunately may nebach have to marry someone who is working. My heart goes out to her, but that may be the hishtadlus that she has to do. but for the rest of us NORMAL girls, i see no reason why i should marry a working boy? im curious what other opinions are on this topic!
I leave you with my second most viewed video on You Tube- which is my shidduch crisis rant: