{"id":1209,"date":"2015-08-02T11:04:54","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T15:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1209"},"modified":"2015-08-02T11:04:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T15:04:54","slug":"jewish-and-married","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1209","title":{"rendered":"Jewish (and Married)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Everyone<\/a>This just in: After decades of teaching and writing about Jewish history and texts, after delivering interfaith programs on All Things Jewish, after studying to become a rabbi, and after about twelve years leading the same Jewish Renewal congregation the world has finally discovered that I am Jewish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world,\u201d I admit, is an exaggeration. Most of the world doesn\u2019t know me or care to, either. I don\u2019t blame the world for this fact; it seems reasonable enough.<\/p>\n

But curiously, I appear to be well worth contacting for one slivered subsection of the planet \u2013 the realm of online dating sites.<\/p>\n

It all began last year, when I began to receive advertisements for Match.com<\/a>. I decided there had to be a kind of cyber-contagion at work. My twenty-something son had registered for a dating site of some kind or another (don\u2019t remember the name; only that it was free).\"Dating<\/a><\/p>\n

Thiede is not a popular name, so I assumed that his last name had been cyberly synced to mine. Kinda the way Facebook takes a list of your friends and then suggests more friends via connections with your friends.<\/p>\n

As fall progressed, I received additional solicitations. Eharmony<\/a> made its presence known. Deleted. AsianDating<\/a> checked in, promising me many pictures of beautiful Asian people. Indeed, the site\u2019s homepage features a young, smiling Asian woman holding her long hair up on one side, her eyes flirting and expressive. Over her picture we read: \u201cFind Your Asian Beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

I deleted the email.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks later, I found myself looking at a new email invitation \u2013 this time from ChristianMingle<\/a>. The relevant homepage is almost wholly taken up by a white heterosexual couple embracing sweetly in the light. She appears to have\"Christian<\/a> jumped into the male model\u2019s arms despite her spiky heels. Light is flowing into the room from an open door. Headline: \u201cThe Power of Two: United in Faith and Purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I signed up, I read, I would be given \u201ctools to create God-based relationships.\u201d I would be able to access Christian chat rooms, instant messaging, photos, Bible verses, and more.<\/p>\n

I need ChristianMingle in order to access Bible verses?<\/p>\n

I wondered whether the site\u2019s definition of \u201cGod-based relationships\u201d included those formed by members of the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n

I deleted that email, too.<\/p>\n

I am married. Happily so. For over three decades. I don\u2019t care how many fish there are in the sea<\/a> \u2013 at least not the human ones.<\/p>\n

After deleting such invitations for many months, I finally realized that there might be married people on dating sites, and that such sites knew such things and didn\u2019t care one whit about my marital condition or anyone else\u2019s. They would bother me until the end of my time here on this earth.<\/p>\n

I asked my husband, Ralf\u2019s opinion on this matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Ralf said, \u201cI understand that a dating site that was designed to help people commit adultery has just been hacked. Tens of thousands of names were on that site.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYikes,\u201d I said. \u201cTens of thousands of people must now be in a terrible state of shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr not,\u201d Ralf added.<\/p>\n

I called my twenty-something son and blamed him for the influx of such invitations. It was his fault, I said, and he could just stop dating right now<\/em> and spare me the trouble of deleting all those emails.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom,\u201d he said, \u201cI don\u2019t think I caused this. And don\u2019t you want grandchildren some day?\u201d<\/p>\n

I do. I told him he could go back to dating.<\/p>\n

Privately, I wondered about the fact that the cyberworld seemed determined to hook up a married woman with somebody \u2013 anybody \u2013 but most definitely not a fellow Jew.<\/p>\n

Last week, the world finally found out I was Jewish. At least dating sites did. I finally received a solicitation from JDate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I smiled. But I deleted that email, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This just in: After decades of teaching and writing about Jewish history and texts, after delivering interfaith programs on the same, after studying to become a rabbi, and after about twelve years leading the same congregation the world has discovered that I am Jewish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[304,303],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bible-verses","tag-online-dating"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}