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The Zionist Conspiracy

A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
 
Frumster and DosiDate

Further to my recent post criticizing Frumster (the dating site for observant Jews) for having all its members identify themselves by one of eight categories, I have discovered that Frumster is essentially a copy of a site in Israel, DosiDate.

DosiDate also asks members to place themselves in one of eight categories. While that is excessive, it is much more sensible in Israel than in North America. While not ideal, in Israel observant Jews are categorized as dati or charedi, and then further categorized within those groups based on whether they serve(d) in the IDF and if they do or did, whether they are or were in a regular army unit, in a hesder yeshiva, or in a charedi Nachal unit; as well as by what kashrut certificates are acceptable to them, i.e. only badatz, rabbanut, rabbanut mehadrin, etc.

There are no similar distinctions in the U.S., where the social gap between, say, a guy living in Flatbush who went to college, wears a hat and calls himself "charedi" and a girl in Stern College who calls herself "modern Orthodox machmir" is quite often nil. In contrast, in Israel, a guy learning in a yeshiva in Bnei Brak on an army deferment is unlikely to date a very religious female Bar Ilan university student who did a year of sherut leumi (national service).

UPDATE: Upon further reflection over shavuos, Frumster's attempts to copy DosiDate are especially curious in its addition of a category called "Yeshivish Modern." DosiDate has a category called "Charedi Dati" (or "chardal"). A very large number of black-hatters in America probably fit within the category of chardal, which generally means someone who is very strict with regard to halacha, but is also a Zionist who serves in the IDF (or performs sherut leumi) and is open to secular education.