Saturday, January 3, 2009

Shidduch Crises & Easy conversion


Jersey Girl
has left a new comment on your post "Homosexuality & Orthodoxy /R' Riskin":

Twenty five years ago, a friend of my parents, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, an attorney,an Orthodox Jew and a truly wonderful person, turned 30 unmarried.

She lamented that no Jewish man wanted her, brilliant, introverted and not model thin. So, on her 30th birthday she told her parents that she did not want to leave this world childless. She had saved two years salary to take a leave of her profession and become a single parent. She was
going to the sperm bank to become a mother and bring a Jewish child into the world.

The strictly Orthodox parents were appalled and disowned their daughter.Friends and neighbors explained that due to already widespread "conversions" being done by Orthodox Rabbis who believe they are "making a Jewish home" out of an intermarriage, there WERE no Jewish men who would interested in a woman like her. (How CAN American Rabbis NOT think of the Jewish woman who is left single when they permit a Jewish man to intermarry?).

She had registered with every shadchan, been to every singles event and actively pursued marriage for more than 10 years. She was willing to marry any man within 20 years of her age who would have her and had only pursued a career because she could not get married.

At age 30, she could see that her chances of marrying were slim and back then, a woman over 30, was considered unlikely to conceive. She did not want to be childless; both of her parents were the sole survivors of their large extended families and this was constantly on her mind.

Today, I know of dozens of beautiful, smart, and refined Jewish women who cannot get married.

The crisis is so widespread that the Star K is offering a $2500 cash gift to any shadchan who matches a single Jewish woman over the age of 22.

The Star K's website sums it up:
"Thousands of single Jewish women, of all ages, who are shomrei Torah and mitzvos, are finding it difficult to find a suitable match. There are many single observant Jewish women in Baltimore, whose numbers are on the increase. A significant number of divorcees and widows, contribute to these statistics, as well."
http://www.star-k.org/cons-new-bignews-shidduch.htm

In the past year, two husbands of our middle aged cousins left their wives and young children to marry Gentile women, whom they had "converted" by "Orthodox" Rabbis.

Another woman in our shul recently lost her husband to a non Jew 20 years younger; the couple was married in an "Orthodox" ceremony.

One of my close friends, the mother of several children herself lost her father to a non Jew, a generation younger. The famous Rabbi Bomzer "converted" the Gentile and married them.

Psychologists say that men and women seek different things from their relationships. Women seek stability and men seek adventure; it is human nature for women to want to marry men like their fathers and for men to wish to seek out women who are different.

An often overlooked statistic in the intermarriage crisis is that according to "Matrilineal Ascent/Patrilineal Descent" by Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman, a professor at Brandeis University , women who intermarry get married, on average, three years later than women who marry Jewish men. This three-year gap is statistically significant because it reflects even non observant women's desire to marry a Jew. The intermarriage comes sociologists explain, after a woman gives up on finding a Jewish husband and decides to marry a gentile rather than stay single.

Two cousins of my husband's, both unmarried, committed, educated Jewish women in their 30s moved in with other Jewish women and conceived children (from Jewish sperm donors) that they plan to raise cooperatively.

If our Rabbis continue to promote intermarriage as an acceptable option within even Orthodox Judaism, what other choice will there be for thousands of Jewish women who are committed enough to prefer single motherhood to intermarriage?

Rabbis should consider the Jewish woman left alone and the Jewish home she could have built when they perform a "conversion" they attempt to justify by saying "they are making a Jewish home from an intermarriage".

In reality, our Rabbis are PREVENTING thousands of Jewish women from ever marrying and preventing the Jewish homes they would have made from EVER being built.

10 comments :

  1. This three-year gap is statistically significant because it reflects even non observant women's desire to marry a Jew
    ======================
    without comment on your general thesis, there are other possible explannations of the gap.
    KT
    Joel Rich

    ReplyDelete
  2. 3 points:

    1) The comment seems to subscribe to the belief that Jewish men marrying non-Jewish women is far more prevalent than Jewish women marrying gentile men.

    Is this a correct understanding of the comment? And if so, on what basis is this assumption made? And if this is not the case, wouldn't one even out the other?

    2) What are the halachic ramifications of a Jewish woman who is single utilizing a sperm bank to become pregnant and conceive a child?

    If the Jewish woman is married, what are the halachic ramifications of doing so?

    3) Cherem Rabbeinu Gershom, prohibiting men from marrying more than one wife has a) never been accepted amongst non-Ashkenazim b) expired based upon the expiration placed on it by Rabbeinu Gershom himself.

    Given that, would men marrying multiple wives possibly be a solution to the "shidduch crisis"?

    (As far as secular law, it may be workable in some societies as the Fundamentalist Mormons do, probably by avoiding any civil marriages and only having a religious ceremony.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jersey girl's comments cannot go unanswered as if they were "the final word" -- which they are not becuase she bases too much of her own "conclusions" and "warnings" to rabbis based on anecdotal evidence and personal family histories without giving deeper and better contexts for the cases of failed marriages and the littany of personal problems she descibes.

    So here goes with an analysis of her most recent post, with my comments starting with "RaP":

    "Twenty five years ago, a friend of my parents, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, an attorney,an Orthodox Jew and a truly wonderful person, turned 30 unmarried."

    RaP: Please define everything very carefully and don't assume that the readers share your values or perspectives. This woman would appear to be a Modern Orthodox person, and it is well known that because Modern Orthodox Jews insist on college educations and launching their careers first, they negate and ignore the best years for a young woman to look for a shidduch in the Orthodox world, and that is the ages between 18 and about 21. A very small window of opportunity after which a young lady starts "aging" with the start of some wrinkles, and the difficulties of looking truly youthful that young men instinctively are looking for.

    In today's Chasidish and Litvish Charedi world, young women are generally kept from becoming lawyers or doctors and developing careers and becoming hot-shots, but rather, parents, teachers and the frum communties are very focused on finding shidduchim for the girls and marrying them to young guys in the age range of about 20 to 24 more or less.

    In the vast majority of cases, this system works, producing long lasting marriages to the astonishment of most outsiders. There are plenty of problems too, but not on the scale of the Modern Orthodox.

    "She lamented that no Jewish man wanted her, brilliant, introverted and not model thin."

    RaP: Why should Jewish men "want" this lawyer shark? Is she going to make a good Yiddishe mama after going to law school and making big bucks and getting used to having men in one down positions as her underlings in the work environment? Get real. Men hate such women. Sweet kind young miedlach are far better in the eyes of the average man.

    "So, on her 30th birthday she told her parents that she did not want to leave this world childless. She had saved two years salary to take a leave of her profession and become a single parent. She was
    going to the sperm bank to become a mother and bring a Jewish child into the world."

    RaP: So she is now "normal"? When not one single step you have mentioned here.

    This stuff has been going on for many years now, TIME and Newsweek wrote about this "trend" years ago in secular society, so now Jews are aping that and it's nothing to be proud of or to recount in a "clinical" way as if it's one of the accepted "norms" of the world when it's an abomination.

    I'ts just not normal, nor is it ethical, nor is it justified by any form of Orthodoxy. People can do what they want because Hashem gave everyone the freedom of choice and all this woman is displaying is that at 30 she is the same brat she was at age 3.

    There may be genuine extenuating circumstances that her parents were Holocaust survivors, so that may have messed her up more than she or we can ever know.

    "The strictly Orthodox parents were appalled and disowned their daughter."

    RaP: Can you define what you mean by "strictly Orthodox" if they allowed their daughter to study to become a lawyer? How much of the parent's Orthodoxy did their daughter carry over with her and was she fully observant and at what level when she decided that finding a disembodied human sperm donor was easier than waiting for her full-bodied bashert?

    "Friends and neighbors explained that due to already widespread "conversions" being done by Orthodox Rabbis who believe they are "making a Jewish home" out of an intermarriage, there WERE no Jewish men who would interested in a woman like her."

    RaP: These so-called "friends and neighbors" sound like total idiots. And that the parents even listened to them is even more ridiculous. This is surprising from Jersey Girl yet who says that EJF's leniencies are wrong because you don't allow something just because someone else allows it or because you need it now in your life. Let's say this woman was broke and she came home and told her parents that she was going to do something illegal to get money, would the parents turn to some shady neighbors who might say, well it's hard to find a job and rabbis are not helping people with charity, so therefore, what the heck, let you daughter do what she thinks she can get away with and come up with scheme to get the unksoher money she needs and she will not have to beg or become a charity, as long as she gets the money to help her keep off welfare? Nobody NORMAL or ETHICAL says this, right? So it's the same here, nobody should listen to the crazy, corrupt and immoral suggestions of beighbors, regardless of what rabbis are allegedly doing and not give in to the BLACKMAIL of this manipulative desperate female who has her mind made up already to do what she wants, and secular society has already sanctioned years ago, in any case.

    In addition, like Chasidim do, did the parents consult with their rabbi when their soon-to-be-spoiled-brat daughter was born where they should send her to bais yaakov or what friends were good for here, or if she is allowed to go to college, or if she should be spending so much time developing a a career and enjoying life as a single??? Probably not. Only now that there is a problem, it's automatically "the rabbi's fault" that he does conversions for others or whatnot.

    Look, this spoiled brat gal has her failings and the rabbis have their failings, but there is absolutely no moral equivalancy and each must take responsibilty for their own failings and that's the only way that is known that problems can be solved.

    "(How CAN American Rabbis NOT think of the Jewish woman who is left single when they permit a Jewish man to intermarry?)."

    RaP: Ok, so now you imply that "American Rabbis" are evil no good bums. You obviously have a very low opinion of them , so why do you think they should care about what you are belly-aching about? Being a rabbi is no fun and most rabbis are thrust into moral dillemmas they would rather not have chosen. So quit making this into a rabbi issue when it's not and let the people also take the blame for NOT listening to certain rabbis or listening to the wrong rabbis.

    You know, I have often felt that people get the rabbis they deserve, and if someone genuinely needs a good rabbi them Hashem will guide them to that good rabbi. So quit carping and twisting arguments please.

    "She had registered with every shadchan, been to every singles event and actively pursued marriage for more than 10 years. She was willing to marry any man within 20 years of her age who would have her and had only pursued a career because she could not get married."

    RaP: Right, she was "going through the motions" and getting into a rut and tail spin spinning her wheels, and that gave her a nice excuse to remain single. Maybe she just needed to go to qualified ORTHODOX psychotherapist, or any trustworthy therapists who could have helped her work out the REAL personal, familial, psychological, emotional, developmental, characterogical, subconscious, ISSUES that were/are holding her and many older singles back because moving from being single to being married is probably one of life's biggest challenges that not all people can face up to and achieve, regardless of how may conversions rabbis do or don't do!, which have nothing to do with the system you describe.

    Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Solomon DSW, in a number of his books and articles about older singles is adamant that good psychotherapy is usually the essentail and critical step that older singles must take to gain insight into themselves and why they have allowed themselves to fall into this situation.

    If someone can pass college and become a lawyer they are not dumb and they therefore are capable of submitting to therapy to solve their problems rather than blaming the world for their woes and you defending their admittedly tough situations by firing useless salvos at "American rabbis" of any kind rather than deal with the real issues instead.

    "At age 30, she could see that her chances of marrying were slim and back then, a woman over 30, was considered unlikely to conceive. She did not want to be childless; both of her parents were the sole survivors of their large extended families and this was constantly on her mind."

    RaP: You describe her "progress" (more like a true decline) as if it was a "normal" development when it should leave you cold in your tracks and tell her off for the irresponsible person she is being doing something like this, especially as a supposed "Orthodox" Jewess.

    Even if she found her bashert, who says she would have had kids, plenty of Jewish couples tragically face fertility problems and don't have kids.

    Has she ever bothered to look in the Torah and learn from it, where the matriarchs were childless but they didn't run to sperm banks or sperm donors.

    Sarah Imeinu, and Rivka Imeinu and Rochel Imeinu were infertile and prayed to Hashem. Many were single and wanted the right shiduch. Leah Imeinu prayed not to marry Eisav, and Tamar went to get pregnant ONLY because she wanted to do the mitzva of Yibbum. No bashing of rabbis can justify or rationalise the bad personal decisions of misguided and confused people (the parents of the singles are as guilty often-times as the singles they spawn) who refuse to seek the true help they need in psychotherapy.

    "Today, I know of dozens of beautiful, smart, and refined Jewish women who cannot get married."

    RaP: So what is your point exactly? They should all run off to get pregnant in sperm banks? Do you expect help from rabbis to solve these major social dislocations? There are many plagues in society today and the rabbis can't and won't solve all of them with a magic wand.

    "The crisis is so widespread that the Star K is offering a $2500 cash gift to any shadchan who matches a single Jewish woman over the age of 22."

    RaP: Ok, so? what is you point. Anyone who reads the English Orthodox papers in the NY/NJ areas and neyond knows this.

    "The Star K's website sums it up:

    "Thousands of single Jewish women, of all ages, who are shomrei Torah and mitzvos, are finding it difficult to find a suitable match. There are many single observant Jewish women in Baltimore, whose numbers are on the increase. A significant number of divorcees and widows, contribute to these statistics, as well."
    http://www.star-k.org/cons-new-bignews-shidduch.htm"

    RaP: Ok, but you know, food supervising agencies should stick to what they do best. The people in Baltimore (where Star K is based under Rav Heineman) have their own shtik that they turn to agencies in their midst to solve social problems when the problems and any possible solutions run far deeper than running ads in papers and offering money to people as if they were training Pavlovian puppies to perform shidduch tricks. It's also a form of people not taking the right action or enough responsibility for a social crisis.

    "In the past year, two husbands of our middle aged cousins left their wives and young children to marry Gentile women, whom they had "converted" by "Orthodox" Rabbis."

    RaP: So now you make a leap. You have gone meandering about a woman in her 30s that goes to a sperm bank and sets a louzy example to other Jews (who needs real Jewish guys who don't want to marry just yet, when we can get high class, fresh sperm on demand for a few bucks at a local sperm bank -- ah the mdoern age is ever so amazing, ain't it?) and now you jump to the Star K offering bucks to encourage shidduchim, and then all of a sudden you are now talking about men having middle age crises and running off with younger women.

    This is not new and you wish to somehow implicate and blame all the rabbis of the world in everything. You know what? If you know all this, why don'to you and your husband become a FULL TIME Rabbi and Rebbetzin, and then hire and recruit an army of clones just like you, and work on these issues night and day for decades and come back and report how far you got and how much success you have had in influencing people out there in the world who never listen to rabbis in any case and who want to ruin their own lives?

    "Another woman in our shul recently lost her husband to a non Jew 20 years younger; the couple was married in an "Orthodox" ceremony."

    RaP: She didn't "lose" him, he dumped her for another woman and there are ALWAYS good reasons why that happened, aks any marital counselor and they will tell you that always start with assumption of 50/50 that noone is blameless and noone is guilty until you know the true facts behind what happened.

    "One of my close friends, the mother of several children herself lost her father to a non Jew, a generation younger. The famous Rabbi Bomzer "converted" the Gentile and married them."

    RaP: Hey, you and Rabbi Tropper now agree on something, that Rabbi Bomzer is "the cause of all evil in the world" -- which is ridiculous. Rabbi Bomzer does conversions, he did not cause the unghappiness in this man's life that caused the breakdown of his marriage. Rabbi Bomzer did not bring about the factors that changed in the lives of the broken marriage. Rabbi Bomzer is not responsible for the way the man's kids do or don't treat him, or how his in-laws do or don't treat him in that community and how he was driven to dump his wife and kids and run of with another woman, etc, such things take years even decades to come to the boil.

    Then again, Rabbi Bomzer is not responsible for people'e immaturity. If some people are emotionally babies, then no amount of pledging allegiance to a shalow form of Orthodoxy will stop passions and love interests from developing. I mean, that's pretty basic.

    "Psychologists say that men and women seek different things from their relationships. Women seek stability and men seek adventure; it is human nature for women to want to marry men like their fathers and for men to wish to seek out women who are different."

    RaP: Whatever. But you miss the mark, yet again, because the idea that is important is to SEEK THE HELP OF GOOD PSYCOLOGISTS when people are faced with chronic singlehood, troubled marriages, or straying spouses, and wake up and smell the coffeee long before it's too late and nothing can be done.

    People must have the guts to face the issues.

    Not every human has what it takes to get married.

    Not every human has what it takes to remain married.

    Not every human has what it takes to remain a loyal and faithful spouse and not stary.

    Welcome to human nature and the human condition and it has nothing to do with blaming faceless and nameless rabbis or vague ideas about their ineptness or inaction.

    "An often overlooked statistic in the intermarriage crisis is that according to "Matrilineal Ascent/Patrilineal Descent" by Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman, a professor at Brandeis University , women who intermarry get married, on average, three years later than women who marry Jewish men. This three-year gap is statistically significant because it reflects even non observant women's desire to marry a Jew."

    RaP: Ok, but by now, basically almost all secular Jews (the vast majority in America) do NOT care who they marry, if they even care to marry at all. Statistics has shown that secular Jews play the field longer, have more sex with more partners than any other group, many are gay and put off marriage for a long time.

    No wonder there is zero secular Jewish population growth.

    Those are just facts that apply to both Jewish men and women and that is why the Kiruv movement is so important in this entire scenerio to TRY to change things for the better. Otherwise, there are few secular Jews like there used to be in America.

    "The intermarriage comes sociologists explain, after a woman gives up on finding a Jewish husband and decides to marry a gentile rather than stay single."

    RaP: Whatever. Intermarriage comes about for a multiplicity of reasons. The most basic is that secular Jews are the strongest believers today that there is "NO difference" between them and gentiles, and that it is "racist" to think that a Jew should "only" marry a Jew, and that it is "homophobic" to reject homosexual unions, and that any lifestyle of beliefs Jews choose are as legitimate as anything Judaism says. Most secular Jews know zero about Judaism and they live with gentiles in close proximity. Many are already products of intermarriages.

    Your statitics and data are very dated. You need to face up to the real catastrophe and the real reasons Jews are not being and acting like Jews anymore.

    "Two cousins of my husband's, both unmarried, committed, educated Jewish women in their 30s moved in with other Jewish women and conceived children (from Jewish sperm donors) that they plan to raise cooperatively."

    RaP: This is just like the 30 year old brat you started this post with. How dare they do such abominations and expect sympathy and a round of applause from the rest of us? How do they know they got sperm from "Jewish donors"? Pardon my expression, did they see the donor ejaculate into a test tube? Is this where the Star K should maybe also come in, to "certify" that Jewish donors sperm go "only" to Jewish females like them and that all will be "kosher"? What madness. Maybe they would be better off with sperm from a gentile and that way there is no suspicion of mamzerut since sperm from a PROVEN married Jewish male is huge Halachic nightmare or are they too dumb and desperate and twisted to even think of such things. What rabbis "permit" such abominable acts?, since you feel rabbis are alternately either ruining and running everying.

    "If our Rabbis continue to promote intermarriage as an acceptable option within even Orthodox Judaism, what other choice will there be for thousands of Jewish women who are committed enough to prefer single motherhood to intermarriage?'

    RaP: WHat kind of "accusation" or distorted logic is that? Who in Orthodox Judaism is promoting intermarriage upfront as an open clear-cut agenda? Not even EJF does that. And do you honestly think that one of those guys who ran off with the younger woman will run to EJF to convert her who will turn his lover into an even bigger yenta and pain in the neck than his first wife he dumped? Fat chance. So you hate Rabbi Bomzer? Ok, go boycott him. Tell your friends and neighbors that he is a horrible man, but it's never going to stop or change anything.

    You know, our great rabbis in the Agudah and Haredi know how to ban concerts or books they don't like in Israel and America, so let them roll up their sleeves and start fighting all the bad things like intermarriages and assimilation in Israel and America. And as long as they are basically silent on the bigger issues facing Klal Yisrael then complaining online here will do nothing to change or improve things.

    "Rabbis should consider the Jewish woman left alone and the Jewish home she could have built when they perform a "conversion" they attempt to justify by saying "they are making a Jewish home from an intermarriage"."

    RaP: Ok, agreed. So how do you propose to get this agenda across?

    "In reality, our Rabbis are PREVENTING thousands of Jewish women from ever marrying and preventing the Jewish homes they would have made from EVER being built."

    RaP: Here I totally disagree with you, because you are pinning the blame on the rabbis alone. If you would display a willingness to discuss other possible factors, and not just blasting the generic anonymus rabbis and giving it to them over the head, you would have some opening to decry what's happening, but simply to say there's a huge singles problem and women are not getting married and its all the rabbis fault is just unfair, false and unjustified loshen hora. ALL people within a community, starting with singles and their parents FIRST, must take responsibility for their situation and try to see their own role in bringing about chronic singlehood.

    How about the materialiam and shallow society we live in as factors distorting everyone's vision and perspective? Everything boils down to money and looks and there have to be ways to deal with that, no matter what side of the shidduchim fence you're on.

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  4. Having spent some of my life as a young single looking for the right women (B"H I found her) I would like to note the following:

    1) Several girls the shdachan wanted to set me up with didn't even want to meet me because I didn't (and still don't) wear a black hat.

    2) Others lost interest the minute they found out I didn't have a car (I was a student!) and would be arriving at the date by bus.

    3) Others wanted to know what yeshivah I went to after high school. But I hadn't so that was it there.

    In other words, all these desperate girls rejected me before even meeting me (after meeting me, well that would be understandable!) So how can Jersey Girl blame it on the boys alone?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I do not think intermarriage and conversion are interrelated to the Shiduch crises in the frum community. The vast majority of guys who marry Gentiles and seek Orthodox conversion are not Orthodox so even the rabbis would not convert their women they still would not be on the market for single frum women.

    However what Jersey girl sees as a problem Tropper and the EJF see as an opportunity. In addition to preaching the good news to Asian and WASP girls and convince them to convert they should open new branches in Milan and in San Juan (in addition to the ones in Phuket and Dublin) to preach the good news to Italian men and Puerto-Ricans and marry them to nice Jewish girls (after converion by Pinchus Rabinovitz of course).

    ReplyDelete
  6. PS. The woman I wrote about above is the daughter of CHASSIDISHE parents who owned a meat business under Satmar hashgacha. She went on shidduchim at 18.

    She took classes at Brooklyn college which many living in Chassidishe homes do. (The lines between "Modern and Chassidishe" were not so defined 25 years ago. My cousin attended Brooklyn college 30 years ago and married the nephew of a Chassidishe Rebbe).

    Conversions to permit intermarriage are not the only cause of the shiddach crisis, but may perhaps be a major issue.

    Please consider the words of the great granddaughter of Rabbi Haim Tawil :

    "My great grandfather, Haim Tawil, was the chief Syrian Rabbi at the time the edict was signed in 1935. He was the main signator. .....

    In the ashkenaz world men often marry non-jews and convert them. The non-jewish woman converts in order to marry the man. Then ashkenaz Jewish women have no one to marry. In the Syrian world, this rarely happens. This was nipped in the bud in 1935."

    http://www.vosizneias.com/12203/2007/10/14/brooklyn-ny-empire-of-syrian-jews-and/

    I based my post on Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman's research. I used the anecdotes as illustration to the statistics.

    The Star K website specifies that:
    http://www.star-k.org/cons-new-bignews-shidduch.htm
    Questions regarding this program should be forwarded to:

    Star-K Shidduch Incentive Program
    E-mail: shadchan@star-k.org

    Rabbi Moshe Heinemann shlita would not go about throwing thousands of dollars toward alleviating a crisis causing thousands of Jewish women to remain single if there were not a crisis indeed.

    I am sure that the Rabbis at the Star K would be happy to share some of their insights. (I have spoken at length with one of the Rabbis of the Star K who was kind enough to take time to discuss the shiddach crisis).

    Kol Hakavod to the Rabbis who at least recognize that there IS a crisis for thousands of Jewish women who sincerely wish to get married. Hopefully more Rabbis will take necessary steps to alleviate the suffering of Jewish women worldwide.

    ReplyDelete
  7. DT,

    Can you tell me why are you censoring my comments?? It is enough that you censored the previous messages when you offer half truths against one side and omit the other side of the truth! why did you censor the previous post?? Be truthful at this time (I know it is not something that you capable off to be fully candid in something that involves an enemy of yours when you joined irrational forces to attack a person at all costs even while attacking things that have no basis in torah (as I showedf you and you (and your buddy RAP who protects the big fraud Bomzer and his buddies send fraudukent conversions to bomzer) together with youhaven't answered *one* of my questions and yet offering cover and protection for a bigger fraud! You should know that if you are serious and sincere about protecting intermarriage that you should have been the first one to attack the REAL frauds! but you are not! Why the disproportionate dissonance?? Tell me, right away that you are censoring my messages and I won't bother with your blog? and i'll know that sheker cannot fight ills of society. But if you are searching for the truth you will allow yourself to be shown that you protect the greatest villain that brings intermarriage and goyim amongst klal yisroel. What reason did you have to censor my previous messag when I did not even mention bomzer in the message? BEcause it revealed how fauulent and fake bomzer is that you take the time to cover up for him and attack tropper??? You have RAP defending him when he covnerted people who left their wives to marry shikssses andleft their wives and children??? How can they do that?? when they won't keep torah and mtizvot? IS then consonant with your and RAP's ramapage to attac EJF for raising "intermarriage" when you whitewash and defend bomzer "covnerting" for clear intermarrige and breakup of family?

    YOU AND rap are frauds who are interested for your own sake and not for torah!! do teshuva !!

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  8. Monsey Tzadik,

    EJF branch in Phuket ? you are too funny.. they do need a chabbad house there with all the Israelis who visit there.

    Jersey girl had a wise observation on another thread regarding the evil being unleashed on our community, child molesters, kids at risk and rabbi Tropper and his EJF.

    I am glad there are voices resisting that evil

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  9. The shidduch crisis does not only concern our own highly accomplished Orthodox women but also women from other groups ages. Such appears to be a function of the disparity between the ages of men and women when they marry, and the fact that men tend to marry women who are a few years younger than themselves. Unfortunately I must agree that from what I have read from a statistical viewpoint, when women forego seriouly trying to marry while they complete career training they are lowering their chances of finding a reasonable shidduch. I do not agree that this is fair to those young women or that it is reasonable behavior on the part of the men- just that it appears to be what happens. If we wanted to truly end the problem or at least greatly alleviate it could try to find a means to encourage men to marry women of their own ages or older by a year or two. The latter would allow women to complete career training and still have the same statistical chances of marrying.

    As far as RLT, quite apart from paramount halachic considerations, **IF** he is approaching intermarried couples who have been in stable relationships for many years, then I doubt that what he is doing would change the demographics of marriage; if however his services are available to people who are considering intermarriage or who recently intermarried, then I would think that such may be quite another matter.

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  10. What about Noam Feldman and the sizable percentage (6-15% depending upon whether or not you count conversions to permit intermarriage) of Orthodox Jews who intermarry?

    Feldman was shocked and appalled that his Orthodox Day School, Maimonides of Boston did not accept his Gentile wife and include his marriage in their Mazal Tov pages.

    Feldman himself writes:

    "I have sent the [alumni director] several updates about my life for inclusion in the Mazal tov section of the [Maimonides] newsletter. I sent him news of my marriage. When our son was born, I asked him to report that happy event. The most recent news was the birth of our daughter this winter. Nothing doing. None of my reports made it into print. "

    Noam Feldman is not a stupid person, far from it, he is a law professor. How is it then that Feldman spent 12 years at an Orthodox Day school and did not think his intermarriage would be such a big deal to them?

    Could the answer lie in the number of Gentile children of biological Jewish fathers who were accepted into Feldman's day school while he was a student there? Could this be the reason that he would grow up to feel that his own intermarriage would be "no big deal" to them?

    Our Rabbis must condemn proselytizing and conversions done to permit intermarriage or there will be a lot more Noam Feldmans in the next generation.

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