“You remain trapped as a single person in a community where there is nothing more shameful than being single.” – Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of Unchained At Last
This quote stood out to me in today’s Newsweek article that profiles the plight of agunot in the Jewish orthodox world. While the article is about the recent social media frenzy highlighting Jewish women whose husbands won’t grant them a get (Jewish bill of divorce), I couldn’t help but be disturbed by Fraidy Reiss’s remark.
It got me wondering, is there really nothing more shameful than being single in the frum community? What about being a child molester? How about being a get refuser? What about being an orthodox convicted criminal? One person (hat tip Shragi Ackerman) asserted that the only thing more shameful than being a single frum Jew, is being a childless frum Jew. I would add to this list being a gay frum Jew.
Of course, the state of singlehood in the frum community has been discussed and analyzed at length by bloggers far more equipped to expound on the subject than I am. Being an older single in the frum community is like looking through the window of a ballroom on a snowy evening, your breath making fog snowflakes on the pane, as you watch happy revelers enjoying the simcha inside.
However, in the 21st century, many frum singles are deciding to embrace whatever time they have left before matrimony, and are enjoying the freedom that comes with being unattached. New York’s Upper West Side and Washington Heights neighborhoods are home to a large percentage of frum singles who have created an entire community for themselves. Of course, whenever people flock together to make lemonade out of lemons, a tincture that goes against the standard societal expectation to be miserable in singlehood, there will be critics.
Howard Barbanel, in his article, The New Shiddach Crisis: Over-40 Orthodox Singles, is quick to point out that those frum singles who never married are usually to blame for their situation. He cites those singles who are:
“phobic to a point of paralysis – be it fear of commitment, emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, “settling,” or any combination of the above.”
Barbanel also points out that:
“some never-marrieds who are confirmed bachelors and bachelorettes who actually revel in the superficially fun lifestyle of dating someone new all the time. These people will also tell you they’re still looking for “the one,” because it’s just socially unacceptable in the Orthodox world to say you don’t want to get married, but they really don’t.”
Additionally, he claims that a portion of older frum singles:
“are just a little bit odd or off – a condition that is often exacerbated over many years residing in microscopic Manhattan studio apartments talking to the walls and their cats.”
Divorced women are not exempt from Barbanel’s contempt, as he says that many divorced women choose to remain single because of the bad experiences they had with their ex husbands. He sarcastically concedes, however, that:
“They would make an exception for a hedge fund guy bringing in seven figures a year and who looks like Brad Pitt, but these fellows are few and far between.”
He goes on to stereotype frum and single divorcees:
“Many of these girls just want to have fun, so they will have liaisons with men from outside the community (so their modesty is preserved within it) and run out to parties and clubs. A lot of these ladies look at themselves in the mirror and (in a state of delusion) see a 23 year-old in their reflection and so sometimes behave accordingly even though they may be the mother of several children. These women are not interested in or able to have any more children so they don’t see the need to be married, especially to balding, aging guys evincing various degrees of emerging corpulence and lacking wads of flash cash with which to enable Prada shopping sprees or fancy vacations.”
Finally, decrying the new acceptance of being single and happy in the orthodox world, Barbanel concludes:
“I don’t know what the overall prescription is for this dilemma other than that a paradigm shift needs to take place, aided by the community, to say that to be Orthodox means to be married and that marriage is not just for making babies (which is vital) but also to give you the fulfillment that comes with a richer life made possible by companionship and that life ought not to be lived alone or in random hookups of dubious emotional satisfaction.”
Among the singles I am acquainted with, none are single by choice. They know all too well the blame placed upon them by society for their single status – too picky, not aggressive enough (meet that shadchan, go to that singles event, accept that blind date!), must have issues (generally meaning emotional or psychological), must not be committed to fixing themselves and attracting a partner (lose that weight, straighten those teeth, have that plastic surgery), the list goes on. There might be some never marrieds who are closeted homosexuals, and would rather remain single than destroy a heterosexual partner’s life. Some divorced singles might, indeed, have seen enough of marriage to know that they don’t want to go another round.
Being single is not the most shameful thing an orthodox person can be. I don’t know what the most shameful thing an orthodox person can be is, but as long as we continue to close our eyes to the real shame happening in our communities, the label is meaningless anyway.
“I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still can’t see.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey
