Tag: dating

Modern matchmakers

YVR Yenta is the brainchild of Madison Slobin, left, Ben Eizenberg and Ariel Martz-Oberlander. Adapting to the realities of dating during the coronavirus crisis, they have introduced the online meetup Love in the Time of Covid: Virtual Single Mingle. This photo was taken before physical distancing was required. (photo by Madison Slobin)

Three young Jewish Vancouverites have set up a collective to help their friends – and their friends’ friends – find a romantic match “using old traditions to find modern love.”

YVR Yenta is the brainchild of Madison Slobin, Ben Eizenberg and Ariel Martz-Oberlander. The three believe that their old country methods, with the application of 21st-century technology, can procure a better match than any computer algorithm. Describing meaningful connections as “the antidote to capitalist alienation,” the matchmakers see a need to fill in a city where “finding the perfect view is easy, but finding someone to share it with can be challenging,” according to their introductory material.

The matchmaking collective was just getting up and running when the coronavirus crisis hit, but that hasn’t set them back. They resorted to technology to organize Love in the Time of Covid: Virtual Single Mingle, where anyone is welcome to join an online group chat, then tell the yentas of anyone they might like to be introduced to for virtual (and, perhaps later, in-person) meetups.

The idea of incorporating old world matchmaking practices with 21st-century singles is a growing trend.

“I would love to claim it as an original idea but, honestly, I spent the last three-and-a-half years on the East Coast, living in New York City, so I have been quite connected to young Jewish community there,” said Slobin. “It was something that I kind of knew was happening in different places on the East Coast. I heard that there was one happening in Minneapolis and it seemed to me like a new trend that was popping up, which is young, secular matchmaker collectives.”

In an age when Jdate and other online dating apps are a swipe away, why the need for the personal intervention?

For a certain segment of young people, Slobin said, Jdate isn’t cool. The other reality is that apps tend to be based on looks or instant attraction.

“I think a lot of people go on dates based on that and then don’t find success because they may not share anything other than that mutual attraction and so this is an opportunity to go a little bit deeper,” she said.

YVR Yenta invites clients – it’s all free and there’s no profit motive – to complete a comprehensive questionnaire about their religious affiliation and how important that is, whether they want a match of their own religious tradition, their political views, preferences, interests and a host of other attributes.

“We accept anyone into our dating pool who belongs to any religion, any race, any sexuality, any gender,” she said.

As clientele numbers increase, the yentas write to potential matches, “so will the quality of our matchmaking, seeing as we will have more match options to choose from! Please help us spread the word to your friends and family, either through word of mouth (as was done in the old country) or by sharing our Instagram page (as is done in the 21st century).” They are on Instagram at yvr.yenta.

“This is something that I would want for myself,” Slobin added. “I think it’s a very cool idea and I wanted to make it happen for all the people around me because I feel like I know so many amazing people who are looking for partners. So we decided to volunteer our time to make it happen. Really, it’s quite fun, so it doesn’t feel like work.”

Girls funny, open and smart

Girls Gotta Eat co-hosts Rayna Greenberg, left, and Ashley Hesseltine have created careers they love. (photo from JFL NorthWest)

To say it’s a podcast about dating and relationships doesn’t begin to describe Girls Gotta Eat. Co-creators and co-hosts Rayna Greenberg and Ashley Hesseltine invite their guests to talk about pretty much anything, and pretty much as explicitly as they’d like. Recent topics include creating successful online businesses, avoiding toxic partners, managing depression, the health benefits of masturbation, and having sex with famous people – and that was on just one show.

Girls Gotta Eat celebrates its first anniversary this month, and Greenberg and Hesseltine will be in Vancouver for that milestone. The pair has two soldout performances at JFL NorthWest, which runs Feb. 14-23 (jflnorthwest.com). They were scheduled to do just one show initially, and the demand would have sold out a third, no doubt, and probably even a fourth. On Instagram, Girls Gotta Eat has garnered more than 69,900 followers in less than a year. (By the time you’re reading this article, that number will likely be more than 71,000, as the account gained 300-plus new followers in the space of two days last week.)

In addition to Girls Gotta Eat, Greenberg and Hesseltine each have other ventures on various platforms, including websites, Twitter and Facebook, but Instagram is where their celebrity status is most remarkable. At press time, Greenberg’s One Hungry Jew had more than 350,000 followers on Instagram; Hesseltine’s Bros Being Basic, more than 915,000, and her Fashion Dads, another 186,000. It is no wonder that a good chunk of time on the Girls Gotta Eat podcast is spent promoting advertisers’ products, mainly cosmetics and fashion. These women have worked hard to secure an enviable target market – their 30-something peers who have money to spend.

While Girls Gotta Eat generally focuses on one topic or guest, Greenberg and Hesseltine try to cover a range of topics and have different guests for the live version, as well as make the show an interactive experience for the audience.

“We typically try to have a guest that has already been on the podcast,” Greenberg told the Independent in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles, where she and Hesseltine were performing.

“It’s rare,” she said, “that we go to a new city and invite somebody we’ve never had on the show. Just because our audience is so invested in the show and they love it, it’s so exciting for them to be able to also see another person that was on the show.”

The weekly podcast now averages well over an hour. In its first several months, it was about 45 minutes, the approximate length of a commute to work, said Greenberg.

“As we had more and more guests, the show just became really fun. We want guests to feel like they can cover a range of topics and we don’t want to truncate the show, something that’s great,” she explained. “We don’t want to hold ourselves to 45 minutes if it’s great content, so it’s just gotten a little longer. There was no day where we woke up and said, let’s do an hour-and-a-half. So, it just depends on the guests; some episodes are going to be 45, some are going to be an hour-and-a-half, we’ll see when the guests come in.”

For Greenberg, the podcast was a huge departure from what she had been doing before.

“I’ve worked in restaurants, I went to culinary school and then I really worked in tech startups for a long time,” she said.

The Girls Gotta Eat podcast was Hesseltine’s idea initially.

“She is a comedian herself and she really wanted to do a show about dating and relationships, and wanted to find somebody that would be open and honest about their own lives and also could be funny,” said Greenberg. “She and I met on a press trip because we both have very large Instagram influencer accounts, and we just really hit it off. We had a great time with each other, we became friends over the course of a few months, and then she asked me if I’d be interested in doing this.”

As soon as the idea came up, said Greenberg, “I decided, and she decided with me, that it wasn’t going to be a hobby or a side project, this could be what we do. So, we focused on it as a business: we built a website, we had professional photos taken, we devised a way to market this. From Day 1, there was definitely a strategy of let’s make this a business, let’s expand it.”

Greenberg had already monetized her food blog, One Hungry Jew, by doing ads for brands. “For example, a company like American Express will come to me if they’re looking to attract a younger audience that has money and they’ll say, OK, we want to create a campaign that is designed to encourage people to use our AmEx Travel and they’ll give me an idea of what they’re looking for and, obviously, a budget, a price, and it can be something like, hey, we want to encourage people to sign locally, so go to a restaurant, take a photo of yourself at the restaurant, write a caption, and they pay me for something like that. It’s clearly an ad, it says ad. That’s how, personally, I make money through social media.”

One Hungry Jew started “as a silly hobby,” said Greenberg. “I would never purposely have named a business One Hungry Jew…. I’ve always enjoyed food, I’d always worked in food, and I was in the tech startup world and I didn’t have much of a creative outlet, so I started taking photos of food with my cellphone. It’s something I always spent money on anyways, it’s what I enjoyed, and I just put them on Instagram because I wanted somewhere to put the photos. It’s just as simple as that.

“There weren’t a lot of food blogs back then…. I was one of the earlier people that started posting continuously. I had really good content, and it was really ‘right place, right time.’ It was certainly a time in the world where marketing and PR were shifting heavily to social media…. And I started getting invited to all these places for free, for a free meal in exchange for a photo.”

Working at Amazon at the time, Greenberg said she was splitting her focus between her job and the social media account. “I was obviously doing a bad job of both of them and I had to make a decision, so I chose. I left my job two-and-a-half years ago to pursue this full time and I worked really hard. I reached out to every single PR and advertising agency in the United States. I introduced myself, I said this is what I do, this is what makes me unique, I’d love to find time to meet. So, just like the podcast, I tried to make it into a business as opposed to a silly hobby.”

While not religious, Greenberg said, “I am exactly who I am because I was brought up in a Jewish family, I was brought up in a big Jewish community. A lot of my social activities as a child revolved around that, so I had a really nice upbringing because I was brought up in this Jewish community.”

Though her parents divorced when she was 4 years old, she said, “I have an incredibly supportive family from both sides.”

She could always talk about sex with her parents, and said her mom is a psychologist, so “we’ve always explored my feelings.”

“My mom bought me a book about puberty when I was like 11,” said Greenberg. “She wanted me to understand my body and what was happening.”

Nonetheless, she admitted to being a little nervous when she and Hesseltine started the podcast, as the pair does talk openly about their sex lives.

“It was a real struggle and a real choice that I wrestled with, how much do I talk about myself and how open am I going to be? And we both, Ashley and I, made the decision that, if we’re going to put ourselves in a public light, then we have to be honest and open about things in our life, and we both really are. And I think that’s what makes our show really good, is that people really feel like they know us, they really feel like they understand our pitfalls and our successes.”

Over the course of the year, Greenberg and Hesseltine have interviewed a wide variety of people. “We’ve had the founder of Hinge, which is a dating app, on the show; we’ve had a sex therapist; we’ve had a psychotherapist; we’ve had matchmakers; we’ve had comedians, actors and artists and all these different people. And everybody brings such a different, unique view of their own life and other people’s lives, and I feel so lucky to have amassed this huge knowledge of dating and what other people go through,” said Greenberg.

The podcast, she said, has “helped me be more calm and not so emotional, not take everything personally all the time. It’s helped me to realize that people are people and they make mistakes…. And I think that lots of people are looking for love and, just because you’re not the person they fall in love with, it’s not insulting, it’s not personal.

“It’s helped me to relax a little bit and be happy with my own life and realize that I should do other things besides focus on dating, which is funny because I do a show about dating. But, the advice I always give girls is focus on your job, focus on hobbies and friends and family and all these other things that bring so much joy your life, and that can be really fulfilling. And love will come and dating will come. And, if you’re a more whole person, it allows you to let in love in a really beautiful way.”

הקמפיין ששמו “תפס אותך”

משטרת ההיכרויות: טיפים למי שמחפשים אהבה ברשת כדי להתגונן בפני נוכלים. (צילום: vancouver.ca/police)

תופעת הנוכלים ברשת ידועה. ככל שעולה מספר המשתמשים בשירותי און ליין, בעיקר באתרי היכרויות ובאתרים החברתיים – כדי להכיר מישהו, כן גדל מספר הנוכלים שמנצלים את תמימותם וגונבים מהם מידע אישי וכסף, או מפעילים אלימות. השתכללות הטכנולוגיה מאפשרת לנוכלים להגיע בקלות יתר לקורבנות. לפיכך החליטה משטרת ונקובר בצעד יוצא דופן לצאת בקמפיין בטיחות שכולל טיפים והנחיות לתמימים שמחפשים אהבה ברשת, כדי להגן על עצמם בפני נוכלים מתוחכמים. “אתם יכולים לחשוב שמי שהיכרתם ברשת הוא בן הזוג האידיאלי שלכם, אך עליכם לזכור שהוא עדיין אנונימי עבורכם. קחו את הביטחון בידיכם כאשר אתם ברשת ותורידו משמעותית את הסיכויים להכיר מישהו שחפץ לנצל אתכם”, אומרים במשטרה. הקמפיין ששמו “תפס אותך” כולל אתר ברשת עם סרטון קצר שהופק על ידי מחלקת פשעי מין של המשטרה (שהועלה ביוטוב), וכן סיפורים אישיים של שמי שנפלו קורבנות בידי נוכלים.

המשטרה מציעה לאלה שמחפשים להכיר בן או בת זוג באמצעות אתרים ברשת להיזהר מאוד. להלן מספר צעדים שמומלץ לנקוט בהם כאמצעי ההתגוננות להקטין את האפשרות לפגוש מישהו מאוד שונה ואולי אף מסוכן “ממה שמכירים”: 1). פרסם מידע מינימלי בפרופיל שלך שנמצא באתר בו אתה משתמש. 2). העלה תמונה לפרופיל שאינך מתשמש בה בשום שירות אחר באון ליין, כדי למנוע מהנוכלים לחפש באמצעות אפליקציית תמונות של גוגל אינפורמציה חיוניות עליך, במקומות אחרים ברשת. 3). השתמש בכתובת אימייל יחודית לאתר ההכרויות שבו אתה מפרסם את הפרופיל שלך, שאינה קשורה לאימייל הרגיל שלך. 4). צלם את הפרופיל של מי שמתקשר אליך ועשה עליו חיפוש יסודי בגוגל. 5). השתדל לצלצל למי שיצר עימך קשר כאשר מספר הטלפון שלך חסום. 6). היפגש עם בן הזוג הפוטנציאלי במקום ציבורי ורחוק מאזור מגוריך. 7). ספר לחבר קרוב על המפגש הצפוי עם האלמוני הנ”ל ומסור לו את כל האינפורמציה הידועה לך עליו. 8). בדוק כל אינפורמציה שהדייט שלך מסר לך בפגישה באמצעות גוגל. 9). מומלץ להיפגש את הדייט שלך מספר פעמים נוספות במקומות ציבור בטרם עוברים לשלב הבא. 10). אם הדייט שלך מבקש ממך כסף צריכה להידלק מייד נורה אדומה אצלך ועליך להפסיק מיידית את הקשר עימו. 11). עליך לזכור שלמרות שאתה משלם דמי חבר לאתר זה לא אומר שהוא בטוח.

במשטרה אומרים שאין אפשרות להצביע איזה אתרים ברשת נחשבים לבטוחים יותר או פחות. זה ידוע להם שיש לא מעט נשים תמימות שהופכות להיות קורבנות של נוכלים מתוחכמים שפועלים ברשת, והן נמצאות בסיכון גבוה של פשעי מין, אלימות והונאה. הם מדגישים כי פשעים אלה קורים שלא באשמת הקורבנות. “זה לגיטמי מאוד לנסות ולהכיר בן זוג ברשת באמצעות אתרי הכרויות שונים, וזה מצער שהנוכלים משתמשים בפלטפורמות מצויינות עבורם כדי לבחור חפים מפשע ולפגוע בהם פיזית וכספית”.

במשטרת ונקובר מציינים כי הם בטוחים כי רבים ממקרי האלימות וההונאה ברשת לא מדווחים, וזו הסיבה העיקרית להשקת הקמפיין “תפס אותך” והעלאת הסרטון עם הטיפים והאזהרות כיצד להתגונן מנוכלים. “אנו מעוניינים שהקורבנות יפנו אלינו וידווחו לנו על מה שקרה להם. כך נוכל להקצות את המשאבים המתאימים כדי להגן על אחרים מלהפוך לקורבנות ברשת. איננו יכולים לעזור על מה שלא דווח לנו. זה אף פעם לא מאוחר לעשות זאת. אנא בואו וספרו לנו על מה שקרה לכם”, מוספים עוד במשטרה.

The pitfalls of Jewish dating apps

It’s rare to find a Jew who hasn’t heard of JDate. Responsible for bringing countless members of the community together in matrimony, a whole generation of young people has grown up taking photos for upload to its hallowed webpages. But 20-something Jews, permanently attached to their cellphones as are most millennials, have many other options now for finding “the one.” Aside from actually meeting people face-to-face (G-d forbid), phone apps are being touted as the way forward.

The apps attempt to connect an array of Jewish singletons – if you both “like” each other, then you can chat. The market leaders, more established JSwipe and new kid on the block Jfiix, promise to connect you with “cool, young and mobile Jewish singles.” As someone who fits these criteria (it’s cool to label yourself cool, right?), I’m here to explain why I don’t believe they’ll achieve their aim. Having lived in London, Toronto and Vancouver, I’ll do this with the help of both personal insight and that of various Jewish young professionals in all three cities.

First, there’s the geography aspect – Jewish dating apps all aim to introduce you to other Jews. Thanks smartphones, but that’s not actually a problem we have. Anyone can tell you how Jews (and other ethnic groups) cluster together in most cities. Simply check out the suburb of Thornhill in Toronto or Golders Green in London if you don’t believe me. In Vancouver, with a Jewish community that a good friend comments is “half a block” wide, it’s not difficult to find members of the tribe. We do, after all, have a shared interest in hobbies such as eating and gossiping – where we find out that supposed strangers are often third or fourth cousins.

This closeness is usually a positive: even if you’re unfamiliar with the specific community or country, Jews, in my experience, excel at inclusivity and making newbies feel welcome. But when it comes to dating apps, it leads to a problem that’s twofold. If you do live in a Jewish area, chances are that you’ll already know other Jews from synagogue, Hebrew school, Birthright or friends of friends. In response to my questioning, a friend in London summed up the issue: “Jewish dating apps are great to keep your parents and grandparents happy, but you end up just swiping left to everyone, as you know them or they’re your best friend’s ex.” So, when you live in densely saturated Jewish areas, mobile apps are needless. And, when you don’t, they aren’t helpful either. One Vancouverite I spoke to, who goes to university in Halifax, remarked, “In my limited East Coast experience, there’s no one on Jewish dating apps. Everyone who shows up is from the States.” It’s little surprise that he set up a profile with Tinder, a similar app but one that’s open to all religions.

This leads me to the second problem with Jewish dating apps: the apps themselves. Certainly, critiques can be leveled at any and all such platforms. One Ontario-based law student refuses to download dating apps, full stop, arguing that people’s profiles are so “planned” and “calculated.” True, the information you put about yourself on dating apps is mostly limited to a line-long bio and several photos, and everyone tries to look their most cultured, well-traveled self in photos. Not only does everyone start to look like clone-like serial vacationers, but it means images, not personality, inevitably end up being the deciding factor in choosing dates.

Jewish apps have somewhat tried to sideline this prioritization of looks with “Jewish preference” tools. JSwipe, for instance, lets you select preferred options for being matched up: you can choose between kosher or not, as well as denominations from Orthodox to Reform to “willing to convert.” This is a pretty rudimentary way of sifting through Jewish singles when you compare it with the fact that people used to put some actual thought into matchmaking those who might work well as a couple. A graduate in Toronto lamented that “everyone’s stopped trying to set up other friends with mutual friends because swipe-based dating apps have become the new thing.” The new thing they are, but a new thing that’s being adopted reluctantly.

Why? I attribute this, in part, to an image problem. The apps aren’t appealingly designed and are more than a little cringe-worthy. Unlike other dating apps with more casual connotations (Tinder) or novel niches (Coffee Meets Bagel), Jewish ones are severely lacking the trendy factor. In my experience, this was because they didn’t seem fun or relaxed, and they certainly didn’t seem like they’d lead to the exciting adventure that dating surely should be. In short: they seemed to be full of people who felt like they “had to” find a Jew. And, depressingly enough, it was difficult to distinguish between whether this hint of dutiful desperation could be attributed to themselves, their parents or even their grandparents.

This is why, for many, the apps are a good idea in theory, but less so in practice. The focus on Judaism implies that if two people’s religious beliefs match up, then they’re clearly compatible. This neglects vital questions such as, “Is this person actually nice?” and “Do we have anything in common bar religion?” And I’d go so far as to say that sticking steadfastly to dating Jews means sticking to your comfort zone, as you’ll likely be from a similar background. But what are your 20s for if not to date people from other walks of life? At worst, dating vastly different people can highlight what you don’t want in a relationship. At best, you’ll gain life experience and learn a ton about different cultures. I say this as someone with a dating history that includes Christians and Muslims, but who, at the end of the day, would love to settle down with someone Jewish.

What doesn’t help in this regard is being warned before a first date with a non-Jew, “You can’t marry him” (thanks, Dad). Any young person will tell you that the more a rule is enforced, the more you want to rebel against it. It’s no different when it comes to dating. Ask pretty much any young Jew and they’ll attest to the pressure we feel from family and community to settle down with a Jewish spouse. It’s easy to joke about, but the joke’s on them when the pressure pushes us away. The burden is too much, too soon. But, Dad, and other parents, just because we experiment in our 20s doesn’t mean we don’t want a Jewish household. I’m sure I will have one eventually – well, we can pray, for my dad’s sake. And you know the guy in Halifax who traded a Jewish app for Tinder? He noted, “My bio has Hebrew in it, so I guess there’s a subconscious hope that it’ll attract Jews?”

Parents, have faith that we’ll come around and maybe, just maybe, we’ll do it without having to resort to mildly dire religion-specific dating apps.

Rebecca Shapiro is a freelance journalist, amateur photographer and blogger at thethoughtfultraveller.com. A recent politics graduate, she manages to maintain bases in London, Vancouver and Toronto, while focusing a disproportionate amount of time planning new adventures. She has been published in the Times (U.K.), Huffington Post (U.K.), That’s Shanghai (China) and ELLE Canada.

Jewish dating app fills gap

Shapira began piloting JFiix in Israel a couple of years ago and it was launched recently in the United States and Canada with an English version. (screenshot)

In 1996, at a time when not everyone had a home computer, Joe Shapira started a dating website – JDate. Today, very few people in the Jewish community have not heard of it. Since its inception, it has been embraced by Jews around the world.

“When I started in the online dating business, I was one of the pioneers of this business on the internet,” Shapira told the Independent. “And I never anticipated it would become such a big business.

“There were a few other dating sites when I started. I hired the programmer and we launched the very first dating site where you could define your preferences. We started marketing and it took off like a fire.”

Shapira was living in Los Angeles at the time. From a conversation with a friend about the difficulty of meeting other Jews in a place where the majority of people are not Jewish came the idea of JDate. Shapira wanted to help Jews meet other Jews, reduce the rate of intermarriage and help ensure Jewish continuity.

Born in Tel Aviv, Shapira went to a technical high school before serving in the army. After he finished his army service, he became an entrepreneur. Four years later, he moved to Los Angeles, where he stayed for some 30 years before moving back to Israel several years ago to spend more time with his kids.

“I think that people, in general, adapted well to the internet dating world,” said Shapira. “It’s a very highly used internet service. I think, in the Jewish community, the need was there. You live in a certain community and, pretty much by the time you’re 25, your connection – whether it’s your mother, grandmother or through mutual friends – we’re expected to meet a Jewish mate there. It’s ingrained in us. But, sometimes, you just exhaust your ability.

“The internet became more and more [popular and] … the style of work that most people do [changed]. You used to meet more people at work and talk to people on the phone. Now, you don’t even go out to the stores to a certain extent. Instead of telephones, we use email or texting. The lifestyle of people created less interaction with others and the Jewish community had a distinct need.”

Although, technically, Shapira launched JDate in Los Angeles, he was quick to point out that it has always been accessible around the world. In fact, the first marriage through a JDate interaction was in Caracas, Venezuela.

“If you are single and looking and you found JDate somehow, you’re going to tell your friends,” said Shapira. “We Jews are a close-knit community. I loved JDate, because of my concern for Jewish continuity, but I left the company in 2006, before smartphones and Facebook.”

Over the last few years, Shapira has been noticing a gap in communication that computer-based sites are still struggling with – that younger people do all their communication via smartphones, not on laptops or in front of computer screens.

“Millennials use the smartphone more than desktop computers,” said Shapira. “You go to work and you have a desktop computer. You work on your laptop at home. Unless you are in your 20s … then, you use your iPhone for everything.”

Internet dating is “a lifestyle thing,” he said. For someone in their 20s, “online dating is like emailing or texting – very natural. When I started JDate 20 years ago, it was not completely natural. In Israel, it took awhile before it caught on.”

Because Jewish online dating sites were not adapting well to mobile phones, Shapira found that millennial Jews were going to non-Jewish sites and this raised again his concern for Jewish continuity. Hence, he started JFiix.

“If you look at the landscape, you have Tinder on one end of the spectrum and the hookup app,” said Shapira. “And then you have apps like JDate or Match.com that are just a smaller [version] of a website.

“One of the big advantages of having an app is you’re always available. You remember JDate – if you wanted to contact someone, you sent them a message and then it took them two to five days to reply. With a mobile, if a woman contacts you, you decide in seconds.”

Shapira began piloting JFiix in Israel a couple of years ago and it now has about 250,000 users. It was launched only recently in the United States and Canada with an English version.

“We are at the stage of acquiring the user base and marketing,” said Shapira. “I think it will be another four months before [we reach] a critical mass of users.”

Shapira promises to wow users with the app’s complex technology, which includes a matchmaker feature. “The matches we select for you are based on the people that you’ve had good communication or chats with,” he said. “We also do a deep learning of photos you submit, so we know your type. People are usually attracted to the same type.”

With JFiix, no nudity or provocative clothing is allowed. The software monitors what people write in their profiles and analyzes the chats, removing any inappropriate content in a manner that is several notches above the competition.

“The purpose of this is to maintain a very positive community, a positive customer experience,” said Shapira. “We can’t prevent non-Jews from being a part of it, as it would be illegal to discriminate based on religion, just as a synagogue can’t prevent non-Jews from joining. However, we provide certain features, especially for women. For instance, women can define who can see them – age, distance, religion – as, when you register, one of the data collected is if you’re Jewish or not. A woman can say she wants only Jews.”

JFiix communities in Canada, so far, include Toronto and Montreal, with only a few individuals in Vancouver, a community he’d like to see grow to allow JFiix to work best.

“I think we provide a very good solution for millennial Jews,” said Shapira. “With the continuity of the Jewish community so important to the Jewish people, I hope I will be able to make a dent in intermarriage’s growing numbers. I think most Jews want to marry a Jew to continue the tradition. In saying that, I hope to, at the very least, help some Jews find Jewish soulmates.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.