Wednesday, April 27, 2011

frum women: take my survey!!! (age 16+)

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6YBFyWG8zpnSJbm

As most of you know, I'm a senior at Brooklyn College. I'm taking a writing intensive senior seminar in research methods. I wrote this survey for it and I need to collect a MINIMUM of 100 responses. However, I want the data to represent a sample of frum women so I need help recruiting women I expect to have trouble getting, like more religious who wouldn't normally have a computer or Brooklyn which has a reputation of not being helpful. Queens, I don't expect to have problems getting sample.

Could you all spread my survey around for me? Response rates are usually 1% of the people exposed to the link will take it (that means I need to send to 1,000 women) If you are a frum woman, can you take it?

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Where Have All Our Middos Gone?

I'm trying to reseach for my research methods class and I ran across this article. I totally agree with this woman, but what do I know? I'm not a real Jew. I'm gyoress. I wasn't properly acculturated to be rude.

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/43582

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Does the matzah have you in a bad way?

There was a poem years ago that I used to see on coffee mugs they sold at Spencer Gifts:

Here I sit
broken-hearted
I tried to shit,
but only farted

Well, I have some ways to resolve this!

First, only eat the requisite amount of matzah. You can have tuna salad and egg salad on lettuce instead of matzah, it's much less calories and the lettuce contains fiber which will help move the matzah out of your system.

Second, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They are high in fiber as well as other nutrients. This will help move the matzah out of your system.

Finally, enjoy the rest of Pesach with less of a stomachache. Yeah!

Monday, April 18, 2011

What in the world do you eat over Pesach?

Every year as Passover arrives there is much discussion on this topic. I mean it's EIGHT whole days!! People don't know what to do with themselves. Many buy all sorts of Passover substitutes for what they eat normally. Does it really need to be this difficult? I venture to say no.

Lately, I've been trying to eat healthier. Looking at the calories and nutrients in various grains like breads and pasta, I saw that grains don't give you such a fair shake. So, I cut back on them severly a couple months ago. Mostly, I eat fruits and peanuts for a snack. So, I will have to pick up some cashews or almonds. Then for dinner, I usually eat a piece of chicken and two or three veggies, very generous on the helpings of veggies. When I'm at school, I often get a tray of sushi and a can of pop for lunch but I won't be at school and even if I were the Hillelicious wouldn't be open.

Instead of going broke on Passover substitutes for junk food, I will be eating healthy food the way or close to the way Hashem made it this year.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

how crazy is it?

I was thinking over Shabbos how crazy it is that the women who lie and backstab get married and women like me don't. Then the divorced men complain and I'm thinking, well YOU married her, not me. Yeah because they were thinking with their d!ck... the "wrong head" so to speak. I just don't get wtf is so attractive about an ugly woman in make up and skimpy clothes. Don't men realize they're gonna get her home and she's going to look all ugly? She'll put the crap on the next day and mistreat you. I mean, don't guys know that women who wear crap on their face usually lie, cheat and backstab? What's cool about having a woman who pukes up her food, btw?

I don't get it. Someone explain this stuff to me.

Friday, April 15, 2011

YouTube video responds to some of the anti-zionist allegation

Responding to the comments on the last post

Well, I personally have been to Hineni lectures, all of twice. However, there's a certain type of man who haunts these "singles" lectures and such looking for women extremely young. Another friend who is a convert, I took her for Shabbos to someone and she tells me when we are safely in the guest room, "what's with these loser men like the type you always see at Aish?"

It's absolutely true that no one will say anything to these men. They will run around as loser pigs chasing after young girls. When complain about these men, we are told to "be good" and "be nice." I am not good and nice to people that intentionally harass me. I've had situations like the poster's happen to me. I was not as nice as she was. Perhaps it is because I have looked like a teenager since I was one and I get harassed. Men pull what they think they can get away with and then some. As someone who has had an interest in Psychology and took some extra classes while thinking about majoring in it, I know that men are taught to really go out there and get what they want. Women are more told to wait and hope. Men ask us out. Nice girls don't ask guys out and "men don't like assertive women." As my acquaintance from school instructed me in something I already knew, men want what they want and if they don't want you, there's not a thing in the world you can do about it. Women are stuck, supposed to take what we can get, greatful for any "scraps." How much worse it is in the Jewish world and we are pressured to take the most disgusting. As a convert, I'd better dare not think of taking someone decent, he is reserved for their daughters, sisters, cousins, etc. If the Bukharian with thick accent, right off the boat with grandkids back home wants me, by golly, I should be greatful.
Judaism claims to put women on a pedestal. They claim we are "exempt from davening because" we are "closer to Hashem."


Actions speak louder than words. They pressure women to become what men want NOT the other way around. They pressure women converts to take what they never would have considered before conversion.

I wanted to be closer to Hashem, so I wanted to be a part of a religion that shares my core beliefs. Sure, they dunked me, but I've never been let in and I'm reminded every time I turn around that I'm not welcomed as a Jew. I ask myself over and over again, why did I do this? Was it really worth it?
 
I haven't had quite as rough of an experience as my guest poster. I've had more dates than she has, guys pick me up and take me to reasonable places and no one has ever pulled that forgetting the wallet routine on me. Though, I had one guy who didn't have any cash for the tip and I paid that. On a second date or later, that's fine but I was a little miffed because it was a first date and he HAD met in person at school, actually.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Another nebach bothers our friend the guest poster

This probably is funny to read if it hadn't happen to me....




One bad but brief encounter with an older man...





Up until abut two years ago, I regularly attended Hineni because I love Rebbetzin Jungreis since I was a teenager. I still listen to hear recorded shuirs and sneak in once in a while. I wasn't purposely going for shidduch purposes, but I admit it would have been nice. Everyone talks how it is THE place to meet and I love hearing the success stories--they make me smile, but it didn't work for me. For a while I was going twice a week showing up early to get the front row, until my work schedule prevented me going both nights I had one encounter with a normal age man who wanted to meet up for coffee, but he never followed up. I have also taken men I briefly dated there, but they didn't like it and things didn't work out shortly after. Once a matchmaker there saw one of the guys I was with, recognized that he use attend years ago and wanted to set him up right in front me! He told me he was never set up by anyone there because they said he was too yeshivish for the crowd. I've learned that if I am dating someone I like, never go to a singles friendly shuir as if he seems like a good guy, he'll be presented with a better offer, ie. non-convert. Too bad because a shuir should be a great date idea.





So one time after the shuir, I saw an older friend, also a convert, I haven't seen in a while. Normally I don't go downstairs for refreshments because I'm not a crowd person, but wanted to catch up. The space at the refreshment table is very tight and crowded. My friend was ahead and went to find a place to sit down. I'm waiting for my turn for the Diet Coke to be free and this very large unkept imposing man in his 50s blocks me and the cups and soda. In a loud voice, he asks if I'm kohain-eligible. I answer a quick no and try to squeeze around this guy, without a drink. I felt no further explanation is necessary, certainly in front of everyone around the table. I remember thinking in this split second “Too easy!”





It indeed was. As I'm getting past him, then asks in front of everyone “So, you slept around with non-Jews!” Really, I was too shocked to say anything and ran to find my friend at the end of the room. This guy follows and sits down at the table. The man told me, “No problem, I'm not a kohain, I just wanted to make conversation.” The irony that stabs deep with me being kohain ineligible due to conversion is that being the shy nerd girl I am and the age I got Jewishly involved during college, I've never been with anyone, Jew or gentile. Yet FFB girls, some known to be wild are automatically assumed 'kosher' and I'm assumed and treated like I'm the former prostitute. I've hosted Bais Yaakov girls who try to bring random men into my apt and my “guy policy” is one of the first questions some looking to rent my spare room have asked. I guess divorced women through no fault of their own feel the same way at this halacha. At least divorced women have possibility of having their prior marriage annulled and then eligible—I've heard there have been such cases. I'm stuck with the label as "assumed woman of ill-repute." I actually inquired about this both before orthodox conversion in my reading of people's experiences and shortly after when I had a rude comment said to me, I was told by my rav, normal people think no such things towards a convert's virtue and stay away from the few that do. Earlier this year, I had a similar conversation and was told "well you were warned that some Jews wouldn't accept you." I accept that completely some people--that's life, but that the majority of Jews (at least of any reasonable quality) wouldn't consider marrying me due to a false assumption stings.





Anyways, back to the situation, I tell the man I'm not interested, wish him luck and tell him I want to catch up with my friend I haven't seen in months. He continues to sit there trying to interject into the conversation, telling us about how he's divorced, was living in Israel, just random bits to draw attention to him. Apparently he'd met my friend before who was claiming not to know him, knowing what a jerk he was. He knew she was a convert and put two and two together and then asked if I was. It was clear he wasn't going to leave, so my friend and I excuse ourselves. I get up, and he again uses his size and the narrow space in between nearby chairs and tables to block me. He wants to know why I'm not being friendly and wanting to know him. Again I tell him I'm not interested and I need to leave.



I continued to go to Hineni regularly for a little while longer, had a few more encounters with older men, but not as bad as this. I stopped going regularly, (though I go once in a while now no longer coming early and now quickly leaving to avoid people) after I was getting pressured to date an OTD chassidishe man someone knew and wanted me to travel to meet. This was the single introduction I had in the time I was going there. I was told repeatedly how “lucky” I would be if he liked me (what, it doesn't matter if I like him?) and how he “could teach me so much!” What?!? How to go OTD???





Some people just don't get it.....

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The same sweet acquaintance thinks I'm (my guest poster) offering too much...

The person from yesterday's post had a second wind and sent another Email. This is where the real laughing starts down at the bottom....

Maybe not in a seductive way but by traveling a long distance and making too many concessions, for example.
Funny thing is that in the communities us women are told to make these concessions to try to meet someone. I don't make them. My friends that try making them don't meet anyone, either, but they are substantially more frustrated than I am.

Why are you meeting these losers?
Well, we don't know the guys are losers before we meet them. A nice picture is painted of them to us by these people who we are supposed to think of as our friends, that is the backstabbing Jewish from birth women married to an age appropriate men who only have us over for a Shabbos meal when there's a dirty old man on the prowl to invite, too or up to otherwise ka-niving bitchy trickery that they hope will bring them money from the guy/his mother.

You are either looking in the wrong way, in the wrong places or you are presenting yourself in the wrong way. If the most religious men won't consider a convert then those are the wrong circles.

Ah! She speaks some sense! However, as I said before an example: Mr. Phone Date was Conservadox, but dated any Jewish woman. He complained that a Reform woman didn't have a strong Jewish education (um, duh?) she had told him she had a Jewish education and he never clarified what that meant. I think it meant Shabbos meals and stuff and he didn't feel that was enough. With me, I presented myself as a BT without actually lying and saying so point blank. I told him I was raised secular and became religous about four years ago. He commented over and over again that looking at my pictures, I don't look Jewish. He must have suspected that I was either a gyoress or wanting to convert and I was not even Jewish. I don't get it though. Guys will date non Jews and bring them in for a conversion, why can't an already converted find someone?

I knew a Persian Israeli guy from a very religious family and he was very seriously interested and wanted to marry.
wanted to marry her-my acquaintance? Or was hoping she would find him a really young American student? Yep, I've gotten cynical and jaded.

Anything is possible if the man is in love. This is the key. You can do everything for a man and if he is not in love with you it is probably useless. When a man wants to be with you you literally need do nothing.

Yeah, I actually know this.

These other women maybe through seduction are creating that kind of reaction. You don't meed to do that but you need to find men who will want you. Did you get advice from
Other women in the community?

Here is where the laughing begins!!! Yep, the women in the community gave as advice to take any disgusting piece of trash with no job, 50plus years old and abusive types... as long as he likes me.

What about a matchmaker?

I've tried that. They are emotionally abusive. They tell me no one will want me because my parents are dead, I'm a convert, don't make enough money and so on. They are right, but they don't have to be mean about it. One wasn't. She agreed with me that the Orthodox men are out of line with their expectations. My exact words were something like, "the men who are single want what's not reasonable to want. You can't find me anything because there's no one who wants what I am, despite the fact that I'm an intelligent, analytical hot blonde with blue eyes who can pass for half my age. That's not good enough for Jewish men." She said, "I don't want to speak in mixed company." I said, "well, your husband is not one of those men, he DID marry and your son in law is also not one of those men, he did marry your daughter. These men that are decent and single are single because they are holding out for something better... perpetually something better." Then the woman told me about how 50 year old men call up saying 18 to 25. Besides, which if the men aren't looking for out of line young, they will be set up with women who aren't converts.... ya know their friend's daughter and stuff. I'm not someone's daughter.

 I think you should be less willing to do so much so soon. In some ways you are very confident and that might intimidate some men.

That's true. I've been through a lot in my life. Besides my mother dying when I was in high school, I've had a lot of other things happen that I don't want to discuss on my blog. Being put through the wringer over and over again and only coming out with a bruise or two makes a person confident.

Monday, April 11, 2011

sweet but unknowingly humorous advice part one of two

There's a non- Jewish wise older woman from school that I've had discussions with about things like why do some Orthodox Jews live in denim and others say denim is bad. So when Chaim1 made that assisinine comment the other day about denim is cheap, I put it through and sent her an email telling her, I guess now we have our answer. While she was at it she read all three sections of the actual post. She also thought that these were my experiences and not those of an acquaintance. I posted it because for a while I felt much like the poster. However, I think I've put my foot down more than my guest poster who told me last night that she has realized she needs to put her foot down.



Those dating experiences were really bad. You are an attractive person and interesting and smart. You do not need to be taking a bus to meet some loser! Do you think maybe you need to expand the scope of men a little more? I'm thinking of a professor I know at -edit out area college other than my own- who might know some people. He grew up in an orthodox household but now i'm not sure he is orthodox. he follows kashrut and other regulations.

hahaha, I have to tell her not to bother. He'll just look at her like, "silly shiksa trying to help someone. Converts aren't real Jews." However, he'll smile real nice and tell her he'll let her know if he thinks of anyone. Maybe he'll offer a man who turns out to be blind or a 50 year old who does not have a job and lives with his mother which he would, of course paint to me as charming and wonderful.

i think if you do things you enjoy doing you will meet Jewish men. maybe they don't always have to be orthodox?
I've tried Conservative/Conservadox. They also look down on me as a convert but this baffles me since these men will go out and date a non-Jewish woman and bring her in for a conversion.

i could try to ask some people i know if they know anyone. what are you looking for in terms of the man's background, etc.?
Look at that, she isn't Jewish and she knows about the almighty "background" question. She's not as out of the loop as a born Jew would see her as.

What about men that are outside the US? Canada, Europe, Israel? Maybe if you have broader scope you will at least start meeting more interesting people.

I have actually recently started considering guys I wouldn't have before, like Israelis. Though, I don't even do out of town like my guest poster does. The Jewish population is roughly split in three. A third in the NYC area, a third in Israel and a third everywhere else. If I can't find someone in the NYC area, then I can imagine that I'm in trouble.

If you fall in love with someone he or you can relocate.
fall in love? Oy, now she's back not understanding Jewish ways. I'm actually dead set on not leaving NYC. I'm studying for a field that primarily exists in NYC.

I think an excellent place to meet men would be graduate school. Half the students will be male, a lot single and some will be around your age.
Now she's got it again. Though, I think men my age are already married.

Men who are recently divorced with a child or two would be good people to look at, serioius about remarrying and probably more honest and straightforward with less time to waste.
I thought the same thing, but have found they aren't so serious. There's one guy I went on one date with but I see him in FB chat as online all the time and I'm not going to be the one initiating chat with him all the time, so I stopped. He never chats me anymore so I take it he's not interested, or at least not interested ENOUGH.

what hobbies or activities do you really like?
A lot! Going to the gym, art (drawing and computer art)... when I was in the Army we all went bowling all the time... I like intellectual stuff, too.

you want to meet someone interested in at least the same types of things. Are you interested in learning a language?
LOL!!! I was originally a double major Spanish/French.

Maybe join a penpal or language club where you can exchange letters with others. I have a friend who met her husband that way learning italian. he was italian and living in london. he ended up transferring his job to usa and they are married. they got to know each other over a year like that. writing. doesn't mean you can't still meet others but maybe finding something like that where you can exchange information and interest around a certain topic will allow you to meet more interesting people. i think you should identify these kinds of areas of potential interest and then be active. be on linked in and participating in groups and discussions. start to meet a broader range of men. don't worry at first if they are jewish or not.
The poster actually does all kinds of things like volunteering and such, it doesn't work.

it woudn't be bad to know people and develop friendships. these people can introduce you to jewish guys. and someone could convert.
She has no idea of the hoops one jumps through to convert.

or if he wasn't jewish would it be the end of the world? as for modesty, follow your own beliefs. you are attractive and you don't have to be showing off in that way. a nice guy will recognize that and appreciate your values. that is my preliminary advice.

I agree with that. I'm too pretty to dress like a whore to get a guy. Futhermore, I dated MUCH better guys before I converted. Most were only interested in sex not a relationship. Though, I'm finding the same thing in the Jewish world. Since I converted, I've only dated one or two guys who both didn't live at home AND had a job. I'm not looking at yeshivish but the guys I've been set up with usually don't work. The last date I had, the guy had a disability. The girl didn't tell me about his disability, but told him that I was a convert. "Why did you convert?" came out of his mouth before we even got to the counter to order. He didn't have a job but instead spent his days "volunteering."

Hey, if I have to make good money because it takes two incomes, how come all the men don't have a job and I'm supposed to support them? Women make "pin money" as we discussed earlier on the blog here.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I got a kick out of this error message I got

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A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.



If you see them, show them this information:



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Highly trained monkeys... heheheh computer geeks are so funny!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

What would you do?

What would you do?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPzWC0argPU&feature=relmfu

I can't embed it, but I ran across this You Tube video where they use hidden cameras to see what people do when they encounter a mother with kids on a leash (all actors). It's interesting. Personally, I don't know if I would say anything. People like that usually just snap at you if you say something. What would you do if you saw a scene like this?

Thursday, April 7, 2011

To wish upon a skin... part three

Guest post by anonymous... continued


In the past year I've made more effort to go to more events going out of town, even sponsoring a few, asking more people to help, only to not get a single date. I had more dates when I was first converted and younger, but it was more of the same expeiences.


So it's not a NYC thing, I go to other events in the Northeast, fly to Florida, west coast, and it's the ffb skin that wins, not convert modesty. In the rest of my life, I'm successful and happy. Yet, the stigma of a convert and my competing with skin is a losing battle in wanting to find a life partner.

Yet, I suppose I should feel all warm and fuzzy that at least I'm modest, upholding halacha and alone. While the girls that bend the rules are rewarded with having the time of their life and they do get married. It is time I give up on ever getting married since no one wants to consider a convert, and the ones that will are very old or otherwise gross. OK I know as a convert, I'm going to get tons of mussar and a re-explaining of the halacha that I already know on proper dressing. Also told to daven more and give more charity (which I do) or volunteer (I deliver meals, go to nursing home weekly, soup kitchen twice a month).

I'll also be warned not to be jealous of other girls getting nice treatment. I do wish those women the best, but I don't see how I should be supportive of their breaking halacha and tzniut standards and getting rewarded for it with male attention and shul leadership turning a blind eye their way (but critical of me if I don't accept every last chumrot). Then the girls bragging to me about perks I've never had. Meanwhile, I follow halacha and get ignored.

Yes I know there's tons of books and shuirim on the subject for encouragement. I've read them and gone to speakers. Honestly though. men need them more than I do--their attention to showing skin off and ignoring the properly dressed woman is what fuels this. Reading more on modesty just upsets me because I don't see it practiced. The ravs and rebetzins that promote this @#$%^ are all married, generally young at that, and likely didn't have any dating difficulties. It's no issue for them to promote tzniut, in fact they don't want their male family members tarnished by inappropriate women. But really those ravs and rebbetzins as long as their books sell couldn't care less about modest women and their challenges.


Mr. Phone date, back to the beginning....

I just noticed the first Email where things started to turn weird. I should post these in order. This one is pretty tame, but I'm still going to post it with my wisecracks.


Plainly put, shall I move on? I hadn't heard back from you after leaving a message yesterday and was just wondering. After all, ...,, it would seem to me that you would be motivated to connect, focus on this relationship & move it forward, unless of course you were involved with others.
If you are involved with others, please just tell me so and I'll look elsewhere, as I'm looking for a monogamous real-time relationship, and not just a once/week phone call.
 
The notable thing here is that this guy hadn't even met me in person. He "met" me online and over the phone and he expects me to drop everything as soon as I am talking to him and not be talking to others. Also, he says he wants a "real-time" relationship, but he is the one that didn't want to meet me for real. He sent this Email a week after we started talking and I had talked to him twice, both very long conversations. I don't know, someone tell me, but I find it hard to feel connected to someone I've never even met at all. It's not like we met in person before this happened.
 
Am I wrong? Is it normal to be in a relationship with a mythlogical male?

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

To wish upon a skin... part two

Guest post by anonymous... continued

Recent actual example: I hosted two Bais Yaakov grads last week that were dating men in the area and wanted to spend Shabbat together. Around my age, and one was very similar in appearance and build to me. The girls arrive to my apartment wearing skinny jeans, that show off their shape nicely and short sleeve t-shirt under their heavy jacket. Their Shabbat outfits had V-necklines, their hems were a few inches above the knee and really they could have used the next dress size larger for a modest fit. They were nice outfits for someone secular, but very inappropriate for frum women.
Yet they were the girls dating nice guys and having fun, basking in male attention, while I was rotting away alone. Over dinner I heard about their great dates and fun things they get to do. Their dates rent cars to pick them up, they go to expensive restaurants, shows, clubs, charity events, etc. Nothing anywhere near this has happened even once with me and they get this treatment all the time??? I wanted to just die right there I felt like such a freak. No one has any age-appropriate shidduch suggestions for modest convert me. I've asked, and all I get is empty promises to help me, but never a follow through with a suggestion of someone that's my age and in the ballpark of religious. I'm sure someone will suggest another wonderful shadchan. I don't need more shadchans, I need actual man that wants to date and is serious about marriage.


In the last 2 years, I've met just 4 men for dates, none through shadchans (again, no one respects me wanting to date around my age). I've had oodles more men that like email exchanges and chat on phone but don't want to meet—time wasters. My last date was early last summer, the jerk showed up 50 minutes late in rumpled clothes, and didn't even offer me a drink at Starbucks before he quickly left because he was so tired. The two dates I had the year before, I traveled out of town for both for hours on a bus, one guy forgot his wallet when paying for a slice of pizza. The travel was longer than the date, not to mention my expense. The other guy, a bit outside of my age range, I met at an outreach center where I stayed over shabbat. Well, for our 'date' after shabbat he invited me to partake in the shul's kiddush leftovers because going out, even for Starbucks would be a 'waste' since there's a coffeemaker at the shul. He wanted to date again and I declined. I'm still hearing about I let that latter wonderful guy get away. The fourth guy in 2 years was so awful it would require a separate post.


To be continued....

Watch out!

I ran across this video on you tube with Glen Beck interviewing Benjamim Netanyahu. I really think he pinpoints the arrogant naivite that many Americans have. They just believe everything they hear and if they thought about it, people should realize this truth. We saw it a little bit with 09/11. We should know better!



Monday, April 4, 2011

To wish upon a skin... part one

Guest post by anonymous
 
I've been pretty upset over the double standard of tzniut lately. Actually there's two double standards. One is the rule enforcement is different for FFB and non-FFB, especially for converts. FFBs are not criticized and are rewarded with attention from nice guys. Second, in my experience, following halacha repels normal men and attracts disgusting old men which people pressure me to date. I did work with a frum make-up artist and stylist to help select nice shabbat and date outfits that are both suitable and I like. I do get compliments on my appearance so it's not the outfits but lack of skin showing.

In shul and at shuirim (especially at the ones known for a big singles crowd), I see the girls that are around my age that are getting attention and lots of dates and shabbat meals, they 'fudge' with shorter skirts, lower necklines, and tight clothes. Things too suggestive that I would have never worn before conversion. Following halacha on modesty only attract creeps that see me showing up alone at events. It makes me feel weird standing out and not in a good way. Being ignored or worse harrassed by nasty old men makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed. Meanwhile te girls that bend the rules get treated way better.

...to be continued

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Wisecrack gets the class laughing but pisses off professor

So, in  my Jewish class, today (well, Tuesday when I'm writing this) the professor was talking about how various men were doctors in the timeframe we were covering. We are in Spain when the Jews lived there under Muslim rule. For example, Hasdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915 to 9170 CE) was a doctor. Judah Halevi was also a doctor from that time. Also, Maimonides was a doctor and lived some time around this time, I think we get to him in the near future because he fled to Fez and Israel (then Palestine, I believe) which I believe would have happened around 1492, when Spain kicked out each and every Jew. Just like Judah Halevi, I can write poetry.

So, I made the wisecrack that all these Jewish men were doctors. I said, "someone should tell that to the bums in Lakewood!" Most of the class laughed... well the Jews, did, even the crotchy older lady from the study session. I think her husband learns and wants her to support him so, I guess she would laugh. The professor said he didn't think it was funny and he thought it was innappropriate. Ok, so maybe it was a little off topic, but it's not like he doesn't go off topic. I guess I note, only make a funny in class to my immediate neighbor via typing in my notes, no cracking up that whole class. :-(

Cool song! Hebrew hip hop/pop music

Friday, April 1, 2011

The Fogel Family in Israel

I think by now everyone has heard of the horrific attack on the Fogel Family. It's a bit late but I was thinking that I haven't voiced my opinion about it. Of course, I'm dismayed, but more than that, I'm overwhelmingly not surprised. The people that did this have been hiding behind babies of their own and shooting at us, why should we be surprised that they should kill our own babies. One hopes that the world will hear about this event and wake up. I doubt that will happen. The Muslims will continue to trash Jews and Israel in the media. Americans will continue to fall for it, feeling sorry for the likes of what committed 09/11. If only they would learn...

If only....

Below is a video discussing the attack.