community
Thebe Mabanga A Jewish lifestyle-oriented website has caused outrage among community leaders and conservative elders in BritainOs Jewish community. The site, totallyjewish.com, offers everything from current affairs to travelling and personal finance advice. It also offers an online dating service. The service boasts the largest database of single Jewish people complemented by relationship and sexual advice, chat rooms and sexual position of the week called the OKosher SutraO. The site has seen a Jewish newspaper refuse to run its advert and has been branded by its detractors as undermining traditional Jewish values. It is seen as threatening to the Jewish motherOs hen-like protective tendencies. Its editor, David Garfinkel, maintains, OJewish match-making is as old as the Bible and the service simply brings it up to date, bypassing the overprotective mum.O He enjoys the support of people like David Israel from Leeds who says, OYoung people hate their mothers setting them upon a blind date…[This is the] 21st century, not the remake of the [1971 matchmaker movie] Fiddler on the Roof.O The South African Jewish community seems to have serious reservations about aspects of the service. OAny initiative to help people to meet is not a problem. The Internet can help you meet someone in, say, the United States. But you can also have completely unsuitable people meeting,O says Rabbi Ron Hendler from the office of the chief rabbi in Johannesburg. Hendler emphasises the need to have the same value system and outlook, and that through counselling he has encountered mothers who cannot let go. Would he marry two people who met on the Net three weeks ago? OI would not refuse completely, but I would be sceptical,O he says.
Many peopleOs misgivings about sites like totallyjewish.com concern sleaze. On the site there is a slot called OGet flirty with our PlayDate of the week in our totally Jewish jacuzziO. This weekOs candidate is a North Londoner in a pink T- shirt. This, the rabbi reckons, devalues the sacredness of marriage. OOur mothers can drive us crazy sometimes, but in the end they want us to be happy,O says Bonnie Barnes-Creswick, a Jewish counsellor and teacher on dating and relationships, who is also an author and former talk show host on the subject. Her recommendation of methods such as the Internet is unqualified. She met her South African Jewish husband on the Web. She has since relocated from the United States. Dale Orelowitz, who runs a Jewish singles introductory service in Houghton, Johannesburg, says on using the Internet: OIt depends on what a person wants. If you want a quick, short-term [relationship] based on superficial considerations, then you can use it.O