The other day my mother suggested I bring a date to Passover dinner because all our family friends were bringing plus ones. It was the most Jewish conversation I’ve ever had. That’s when I realised JSwipe might be for me. It’s basically Jewish Tinder—when you swipe right a smiling Star of David appears and when you get a match cartoon dancing rabbis dance around the word ‘Mazel Tov!’
Once you allow JSwipe to use your Facebook information you get to tell them how Jewish you are. Kosher or Not Kosher? Fair enough, I told them I wasn’t. Then your denomination. I decided I was ‘Just Jewish’ because for me Judaism is more of a humanist thing and I was raised pretty atheist to be honest. Other options included orthodox, conservative, reform, willing to convert and ‘other’. When I set my filter to only let me see guys who were ‘willing to convert’ I got nothing.
I also realised there are not that many Jews. I hardly had anyone ‘near me’ until I made my distance 300+ miles. And the people that were near me turned out to be family friends, old school friends or other people I happen to know from the community. When I finally got a few matches (it’s a lot harder than Tinder) I realised these Jews might be into more than a one-night stand. My first match started the conversation ‘hello future wife’ and the second asked if I knew how many children I wanted.
Whatever you do, don’t talk about Israel. I guess it isn’t surprising how many Zionists use J-Swipe. It is surprising how many will unmatch you when you casually disagree with them.
You also only have 14 days to message before your match runs out. I researched to see if 14 days was important in the Old Testament but I found nothing. The pressure is on you from the moment the star of David smiles at you.
The most important thing I took away from JSwipe wasn’t a lovely Jewish doctor, unfortunately. Instead I learnt that when religious denomination becomes an important factor in your dating decision-making process, you are either looking for a relationship or you are a bigot. Traditional Jewish matchmaking (Shidduch) has made it the 21st Century. Mazel Tov, single Jews! It’s a lot more high tech than singing songs from Fiddler on the Roof.
