Crisis on the Upper West Part II

Now if you are anything like me you were appalled by that article. In my opinion, young Jews are getting married too young already. Why don't we just set them up in high school and then save money on college tuition because who can go to college when you have 2 babies to care for. I sent that article around to some friends for a laugh and I love the response I got in return from one friend in particular- Ilana. Ilana you are my hero of the week and you are nominated for the Upper West Side Nothing Pulitzer. You would have won if you had sent the letter. Below is the email.

Nothing new -- Michael Steinhardt said worse at a lecture I went to last year, which prompted me to write this letter...should have sent it but didn't:

Dear Mr. Steinhart --

I never had the chance to thank you properly for fully funding my trip to Israel through your remarkable Birthright Israel Program. I want to assure you that it was money well-spent, and I took advantage of every opportunity to learn about and love the land of Israel, and recognize myself as a part of its history and its people. People often speak of you as a benevolent philanthropist, a man of vast resources who chose to bestow some of his wealth on the Jewish people in order to teach them about their heritage and encourage them to grow as Jews and as people, and in turn help others do the same. That is an admirable achievement and I applaud you for your vision.

Now I must thank you once again for opening my eyes to a truth that I did not realize before hearing you speak in person: I hold the key to the future of the Jewish people in my hands -- and with every successive menstrual cycle, I'm squandering that potential!

Last night, I attended the first of your series "Michael Steinhart Presents" to hear a panel of speakers discuss relationships, specifically strategies for finding and keeping your bashert. I came with a close friend, each of us looking to glean some insight from a panel of Jewish experts in the field, on how to achieve a meaningful and lasting relationship. The evening should perhaps have been titled: "Spinsterhood is Imminent: Why Your Life Without a Mate is Worth Less and Less with Every Passing Year". I must admit that after about twenty minutes of listening attentively, I expected to be told I fell somewhere on the food chain between tile mildew and bathroom fungus because I did not cap off the evening married and pregnant with twins.

Here's what the evening taught me:

I. You are all single-handedly responsible for the decrease in the Jewish population
II. You are well beyond your proper child-bearing years (note: 27)
III. Your standards are too high and romance is overrated
IV. Forget your expectations -- get married, get knocked up, and let's get the show on the road
V. Every Jewish woman would clearly rather make $2.40 at work than have seven children -- and herein lies the problem

Wow. I must be lacking not only in my reproductive capacity, but also in my mental resources. And here I was, thinking graduating Magna Cum Laude from Barnard College was a pretty big deal. Of course, my entire degree is irrelevant as I should not waste my time chasing after a meager $2.40 an hour (FYI, I believe this has not been the minimum wage for a number of decades, but perhaps as I am a woman and should really be spending my time barefoot and pregnant, it should not matter anyway).

It is not everyday that one has the unique opportunity to pay an admission fee to be told they are worthless. Generally, one can find that kind of validation for free from any of the following sources -- abusive spouses/boyfriends/teenage siblings, judgmental parents, various members of the clergy, and New York City taxi drivers. The homeless man on my block sometimes tells me I am worthless, although once I give him the requested donation to the United Negro Pizza Fund, he has the courtesy to stop.

I thank God you have decided to rid the single population of Manhattan of having STANDARDS. Of course we should throw the "checklist" you spoke of out the window -- lest it grow too long to manage and overwhelm with its sheer weight and size! I only wish your audience had been filled with more eager, idealistic 20-somethings, because I think they would have benefitted immensely from your warnings. You would have sent some directly to tears, others straight to the Entenmann's aisle in Gristede's, and others still to their psychiatrist for a refill on their prescription for Zoloft.

Why has the single population never before realized it is so easy to meet, marry and feel complete? Thanks for clearing that up. What a relief. My one regret is that I walked out when I did. Perhaps I missed the climax of the evening, when you single-handedly solved the energy crisis, the Iranian nuclear threat, the AIDS pandemic, the rise in juvenile obesity, and figured out a way to permanently get rid my apartment of the pesky dust-bunny problem.

So in deference to your compelling argument, here is what I have decided to do: This Friday I plan to mobilize a task force of my closest female friends, set up shop in front of OZ just in time for the Friday night shul crowd to emerge. We're going to scan the crowd for a few nice-ish, mentchy-looking, average Jews and approach with a meek, submissive countenance. We're going to offer ourselves up as the mothers of their fill in the blank children. In nine months, we will make a sizable dent in the population deficit, and the Jewish community will live happily ever after.

Most sincerely,
Ilana
aka: "Currently Just Another Statistic"

Crisis on the Upper West Part I

This is going to be a two part blog because it is quite long. Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot stand the term "singles crisis". I don't believe such a thing exists and I think it is just perpetuated by smug marrieds who think that singles don't want to get married and are just too picky. Well I say BAH to those people. I enjoy my life and I am not going to sit home and mope and be depressed about being single and I am certainly not going to settle just so I can grow bored and get divorced in a year. Anyway, I am not going to rant because you all know this.
Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the Jewish Week, asked the Jewish community at large to come up with the next great Jewish idea. Below is an article about the most ludicrous thing I have ever read- courtesy of myjewishlearning.com

The Next Big Idea
by Daniel Septimus • December 8th, 2006 3:23 PM
Category: Ideas & Beliefs

In this week’s Jewish Week, editor Gary Rosenblatt begins his search for, what he calls, “The Next Big Jewish Idea.” For Rosenblatt, the last big Jewish idea was birthright israel, which just brought its 100,000th participant to Israel (free of charge, of course).

Rosenblatt discusses a symposium that took place last Sunday in honor of CAJE’s Dr. Eliot Spack. The panelists were asked to come up with The Next Big Idea in Jewish Life.

Now, I wasn’t at the panel, so I only have Rosenblatt’s summaries to go on, but if they’re at all representative of the real conversation, we might be in trouble.

Rabbi Elliot Dorf, rector of the University of Judaism, focused on the fact that the American Jewish community is “in a major demographic crisis” because “we are not replacing ourselves.”

With many Jews marrying after college and graduate school and starting families relatively late, he said they are having one or two children, and some are facing infertility problems in their 30s and 40s.

His suggestion: encourage these young people to marry and have children while in graduate school, and for the community to create and subsidize affordable day care in Jewish institutions.

I have enormous respect for Rabbi Dorff, but is this really the best he could come up with? Encourage people to procreate at an earlier age? And how exactly do you expect to do that? Plus, here’s something to think about: Maybe our dearth of ideas is a result of our obsession with continuity. Maybe if we stop thinking about procreative sex for just a minute and exercise our brains and prophetic vision, we might actually have an idea or two.

Dr. Bethamie Horowitz, research director of the Mandel Foundation, asserted that “Jews don’t have to be cloistered” to live Jewish lives anymore, and that rather than ask “why be Jewish?” the question should be “why not be Jewish?”

I truly hope that this summary misses Horowitz’s point, because as it stands, it’s incomprehensible. I mean, really, rather than ask “why be a nudist?” the question should be “why not be a nudist?” Right? Enough said.