With both parents Jewish, I figured I would be a must-have nice Jewish Girl within the Denver community.
About a year and a half ago, I assumed that if I was honest in my online profile on Jdate by put up hot photos of myself, and interacted well with my potential matches, that Jewish men would flock.
My initial strategy seemed to work, and within a few weeks of joining the site, I started dating a man who was really into me as a person, but particularly drawn to me because I’m Jewish.
It wasn’t until Channukah that I encountered a Jewish dating identity crisis.
Growing up, Channukah in my family was all about the presents and fighting. Celebrating Channukah last year with the man I was dating proved to me that I just might not be the hot Jewish commodity my date thought I was.
I did not know any Hebrew Channukah prayers, and felt awkward and entertained when he sang them by himself. Here I was, feeling all Jewish-cool, and I couldn’t even represent with a basic Channukah prayer.
I had my epiphany on the last night of Channukah, when I got a sad face from my date when it was noticed that my menorah had no melted wax from the prior night. My date caught me!! When alone the night before, I didn’t light the menorah. I felt bad, and knew that it wasn’t because I looked like I was a bad Jewish girl.
I felt bad because I realized that I identified with being culturally Jewish, but not much with the religion, as my date did. To continue being that hot Jewish commodity, I learned that I first have to be honest in understanding how I identify with Judaism before I can share it with anybody else.