R’ ELCHANAN POUPKO: The Shidduch Crisis You Don’t Know

NEW YORK (R’ Elchanan Poupko / VINnews) — Much, yet not enough, has been said about the North American Shidduch crisis. The age gap between Yeshiva students marrying women who are a few years younger than them in a community that grows every year leads to a disparity that leaves many women with no suitable match.

What you probably didn’t hear about is the opposite Shidduch crisis in Chassidishe Yeshivas in Israel,, who do marry women closer in age to them. Many “older” bochurim are not able to find a woman they can marry. This crisis is so severe that this week a special committee has been established to address the issue in Jerusalem, announcing a $5000 gift to any Shaddchan who will find a match for an older bochur–older being above the age of 22.

One would think that with a severe crisis leaving many women in the Litvish world without a match and another severe crisis leaving many men in the Chassidishe world without a match, the two groups might team up to set up the men and women who can no longer find a match in their own community. There is no question: the differences between the two communities are indeed great; the expectations, lifestyle, structure of community, and social life are indeed very different. Even if, to those on the outside,, the differences might seem minute, these differences are in what members of each community consider to be its heart and soul and are the focus of their entire life.

This thought experiment, however, does highlight an important foundation of the Shidduch crisis: our dating pools and demographics have many borders and restrictions that are self-imposed by our own communities. Sometimes this is a good thing, but other times it needs to be re-examined. The reality is that the more artificial barriers we create to people’s shidduch options, the more difficult it becomes for all. This is, in my opinion, one of the reasons the religious zionist community in Israel does not suffer from a one-sided shidduch crisis. When people are flexible about who they will date: Sefardi, Ashkenazi, litvish, chassidish, religious zionist, etc., it makes it easier for people to find a match. The pool of dating options is less likely to dry up if you are looking at several different dating pools. As a community, we must stop narrowing people’s options or keep on adding more and more categories, subcategories, and sub-sub categories of which communities people can date and which they cannot. More social flexibility and normalization of people dating outside their own shtibel will help alleviate some of the profound pain caused by the varies Shidduch crises.

Would it not be a beautiful Kiddush Hashem if we saw Chasiddishe and Litvishe, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, Israeli and American families marrying into one another? Would it not be beautiful if the goal of building a bayis ne’eman beyisrael would not override the need to marry someone from the narrow confines of our own shteibel?

I think of my grandfather Rabbi Baruch Poupko who came from a very Litvishe family, whose father learned in Volozhin, marrying my grandmother Hinda Novoseller (Twersky), who was born in Bardichev and came from a long Rebbishe family. The families would probably never ever marry into each other back in Europe, but in America of the 1940s, there were not that many orthodox options to begin with, and so as long as the person was frum and intelligent, not much else mattered.

At a time when there are so many singles of feel like they have no dating options left at their age, it is time we do more as a community to normalize different communities marrying into each other and not place artificial barriers on those who would like to marry someone outside of their own immediate Shteibel.

The writer is an eleventh-generation rabbi, teacher and author. He has written Sacred Days on the Jewish Holidays, Poupko on the Parsha, and hundreds of articles published in five languages. He is a member of the executive committee of the Rabbinical Council of America.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of VINnews.