If you or your children are dating, you may wonder how to spot an abuser. In this guest post, Daniella Levy tells us the warning signs. People tend to believe that violence is a random, unpredictable disaster. “It was totally out of the blue!” “He was always so nice!” “There’s no way we could have known.” That’s just not true. Violent people are everywhere. The rates of domestic abuse are similar across every culture, race and religion. If they were easy to identify, they would not be successful. So they conceal their violent behavior. They draw in their victims using manipulation, take away her safety net, break down her defenses and coping mechanisms … [Read more...]
Halberstam Defends Her Pro-Makeup Stance
March 23, 2012 by 17 Comments
I reread the Halberstam article about whether marriageable girls wear enough makeup, after reading a claim that it was satire. The parts about the greatness of her son including the Ph.D. he is aspiring to, and Ollie's hair straightening salon, were indeed over the top. Her hyper-sensitivity about the girls she interviews easily qualifies as satire. This line alone could win a prize: "'Let’s see…she had a nose job….gastric bypass …botox injections….her teeth were capped…..and she wears violet-blue contact lenses…There’s practically nothing about her that’s real!' she laughed. 'But…guess what? She’s getting married next month!'" But so many sections were clearly … [Read more...]
Keep Your Frozen Eggs Kosher
June 17, 2011 by 14 Comments
Should single, religious women in their 30's be encouraged to freeze their eggs, preserving their fertility for a few more years? This was the topic at a conference yesterday on the technology and ethics of single women in their 30's freezing their eggs for later use. Update: Rabbi Yuval Cherlow explains why freezing eggs is not a viable solution. A while ago, the government approved subsidizing the harvest and freezing of human eggs. This is helpful for single women who want to avoid infertility should they decide to try and conceive in their late 30's and 40's, when the quality and quantity of their eggs decreases sharply. Dina Kazhdan, a Jerusalem social worker, organized a … [Read more...]
How Much is Finding Your Beshert Worth? Paying the Shadchan
January 25, 2010 by 45 Comments
This is the seventh part of a series on dating and marriage in the religious Zionist community in Israel. I: Dating Readiness, II: Meeting the One, III: Genetic Testing, IV: Dating Venues, V: Shidduch Crisis?, VI: Internet Dating, VIII: Wedding Costs, IX: Planning Tips, XI: Diabetes,Genetics and Shidduchim, XII: Parents Pushing Young Marriage Today we leave the topic of dating and move on to the engagement. One of the first decisions an engaged couple and their parents will make is how to reward the shadchan (matchmaker). In the haredi world, each side pays $1000 to the shadchan. But in the religious Zionist community, where most matches are made through friends or … [Read more...]
Marriage in the Religious Zionist Community, Part I: Dating Readiness
January 5, 2010 by 23 Comments
This is the first in a series. Also see Part II: Meeting the One, Part III: Genetic Testing, Part IV: Dating Venues, Part V: Shidduch Crisis?, VI: Internet Dating, VII: Paying the Shadchan, or Not, VIII: Wedding Costs, IX: Planning Tips My oldest son is nearly twenty. I'm not encouraging him to get married, but it's not completely in my hands either. Friends have told me that when it happens, it can happen quickly. To help prepare readers whose children are entering the world of shidduchim (matchmaking), I've prepared a series of posts to discuss current norms and trends. The series will focus on the dati-leumi (religious Zionist, or modern Orthodox) community in Israel. Even … [Read more...]
Calling Happily Married People (Or Not)
September 17, 2009 by 26 Comments
I met BadforShidduchim at the Second Jewish Bloggers' convention. She seemed mature and poised, and I wish I had had more time to talk to her. In a recent post, she asked female singles to rate qualities sought in a marriage partner: Please order the following characteristics according to their value to a girl from most important to least important: (feel free to add to the list or change it; there is no order to the list; if you don’t understand one of the descriptions feel free to substitute it with whatever you think it probably means) Facial Structure Body … [Read more...]
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