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From: fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: n.r.j.singles
Message-ID: <142@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 14:52:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.142
Posted: Tue Aug 13 14:52:02 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 06:14:32 EDT
References: <273@aluxp.UUCP>
Reply-To: fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann)
Organization: CS Dept, U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 51


In article <273@aluxp.UUCP> moran@aluxp.UUCP (Alan Lustiger) writes:
>Recently, I had the (mis)fortune to attend Homowack Lodge Shabbos
>Nachamu Singles Weekend (in the Catskills).

Homowack?!?  Boy, could I make some puns with that name!

>I did have some interesting conversations, and I made some observations
>firsthand. Some of these are surely stereotypes but they really held up.
>I'm looking for comments by the net. (Obviously, this does not fit on
>net.singles.)
>
>===> The women there that are still college age seemed, on the whole,
>to be doing nothing with their lives but looking for a husband. They
>seemed to be hanging around until he shows up. (One memorable example
>told me that she was taking off a year teaching, and then "I guess I'll
>go to dental school." The reason that she was taking a year off was
>to _avoid_ dental school!!)

Traditional Jewish values REQUIRE marriage and family.  Any life
without this is considered inherently unsatifactory.  It's to be expected
that unmarried Orthodox Jewish women would consider finding a husband
to be highest priority in their lives (theoretically, this also should
hold for the men).

>===> (equal time) Very, very many of the guys there were socially, well,
>retarded.  This is no doubt due to growing up in an all-boys environment
>in school.  But one would think that for those that are working or 
>attended co-ed colleges they could at least open their mouths during
>meals (optimum meeting times)!  Some of these people really looked
>like nice guys, but they were painfully shy. Whether they expected Ms.
>Right to sweep them off their feet, I don't know.

An Orthodox friend once caught me reading a book about overcoming shyness.
I confessed that I also had been observing a couple of my Italian-American
friends to get ideas how to be more relaxed and sexy around women.
He told me that shyness with women was a DESIRED trait for Jewish men.
It keeps them out of trouble.

>===> (corollary to 1 and 2 above) The most interesting people I met
>were either over 25 years old (and presumably with more learned social sense)
>or they were not quite as religious as the average person or they
>were ba'ale t'shuva (more "normal" teenage social lives).

Interesting that you consider "normal" to mean "like the gentiles".
Your values seem to deviate severely from those taught in the Talmud.
Mine, likewise, but then I'm a heretic (like most other American Jews).
I assume you are at least nominally Orthodox, or you would not have
attended in the first place?

	Frank Silbermann