Cyndi Lauper said it best when she sang her iconic 80’s hit, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” Jewish, non-Jewish, Reform, or Haredi – girls just want to have fun. They want to listen to music, hang out with friends, polish their nails, experiment with makeup, shop, and most of all – obsess about boys! Am I generalizing here? You bet! But one item that’s almost always on the list – obsessing about boys!
Even if, in order for them to remain unblemished until the time of Moshiach, all the girls were frozen in one warehouse of cryogenic pods and all the boys were equally frozen in another warehouse– upon Moshiach’s arrival, the first thing the girls would do upon thawing is ask where the boys were and request a hairbrush and mirror.
According to an article in the Jewish Press, there is a growing crisis in Israel. The article cites a report on the website Kikar Hashabbat, which discusses the growing trend of religious and non-religious girls running off with Arab and Bedouin men. Jewish girls as young as 12 years old end up in relationships with non-Jewish men they meet on the street. In fact, the article says that many of these men are bus drivers.
Organizations, such as Lehava, have been created to combat this problem. They have created marketing campaigns to warn girls of the dangers of being lured into relationships with Arab men. Posters and videos warn of girls being tricked into slave marriages. Apparently, out of 900 cases reported to Lehava, 200 girls were saved from intermarriage.
When I think about this situation, it reminds me somewhat of my own upbringing as a young girl living in Chicago. While my parents were non-observant Jews, one thing they always insisted upon, was that I only date, and eventually marry, a Jewish boy. For whatever reason, this was an ideal that they clung to despite their growing distance from religion over time.
When I was a little girl I heard their requirement (usually after a VHS showing of Fiddler on the Roof – “A fish could marry a bird, but where would they live?”) with minor attention. However, once I got to be junior high age, their Fiddler reference was no longer so folksy and cute. I was 13, I needed a man (hey, 13 is a man for Jews, right?), and there were no religiously circumcised males within a 10 mile radius!
My point is, I was set up for failure. I lived in a non-Jewish neighborhood, went to a non-Jewish public school, and wasn’t involved in Jewish organizational life other than an occasional Yom Kippur visit to my mother’s old shul (where the median age was 82 – my mom and I brought it down by a few years). If it was important to my parents that I date and marry a Jew, they should have put me in the path of at least a few of them!
Somehow I navigated my way through high school without making any serious mistakes. My mother was a tiny hawk, and kept her eyes on me at all times. If a boy began calling too often about “homework,” she would get her guard up! The most I ever managed out of her line of vision was a few group outings, where each guy and girl who liked each other would sit together and schmooze on the train or share a spot on the same bench at the bowling alley.
It wasn’t until I started college at a Jesuit university, that I began to take dating matters into my own hands. I made a concerted effort to meet Jewish guys. Something about entering a setting where I really was a Jewish needle in a haystack propelled me to seek out other members of my tribe.
By joining Hillel, I was finally able to meet young Jewish men my own age and in an appropriate setting. Of course, Hillel wasn’t only about dating. It was about meeting girlfriends, meeting Jewish mentors, and increasing my knowledge about Judaism. However, the boys didn’t hurt.
So, how are the Haredi girls in the Kikar HaShabbat article similar to my own background? Simply, the similarity is in the way that they are set up for failure. Girls and boys are segregated in such an extreme way, that there is no outlet for the enormous curiosity each has about the other. No, brothers and sisters don’t count. Interaction between sexes is a delicate dance – even in platonic situations. Each gender has sensitivities and receptiveness to various means of address that can only be learned with time and practice.
There is no avenue for practice in ultra orthodox society. Young people go from no interaction, to being thrown into the deep end of the pool upon shidduch age.
Most girls are interested in boys for many years before it becomes acceptable for them to date. Girls as young as in 5th grade giggle over their crushes and sometimes stalk out their favorites at shul on Shabbos. There is no way to interact with boys without sneaking behind their parent’s and teacher’s backs.
There is no NCSY for FFB (frum from birth) kids to socialize in a safe coed environment. There are no teacher supervised prom dances. There are no rabbi supervised coed shiurim. There are no kosher outlets that allow for mingling between the sexes. There are only other girls, who are all as frustrated as the chick sitting next to them.
So, what does a girl do when she’s wandering a desert where Jewish boys are currently a mere mirage of possibilities yet 5 years away? Sometimes, she takes the tangible thing in front of her. Maybe it’s the bus driver who takes her to school every morning. Maybe it’s the store clerk’s son where she buys her family’s milk. Maybe it’s the random guy she meets at the park while walking with her friends.
No matter how she becomes acquainted with the man, he’s not a distant promise, but an immediate reality. He’s interested in her and he doesn’t treat her like she’s shameful or unusual for wanting a relationship. In the absence of proper guidance and kosher coed supervised activities, it’s no wonder that these girls are enticed into relationships with the only men willing and able to engage in them.
