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This New York-based dating coach has sage advice for Jewish singles
(New York Jewish Week) — On the Netflix reality show “Jewish Matchmaking,” matchmaker and star Aleeza Ben Shalom jet-sets around the world, meets her clients one-on-one, and dives deep into her little black book in order to make connections based on what attributes people seek in a partner and what sort of values they have.
“Jewish Matchmaking” may be entertaining, but it’s not exactly representative of how most Jews meet their romantic partners today. As anyone who’s been on a date in the past 10 or 20 years knows, outside the Orthodox community, the primary way people get together is via online dating apps. This cultural shift has paved the way for new types of matchmakers, like Jewish “online dating coach” Erika Ettin. Her process may be different than it was back in the day, but the goal remains the same: to find finds and catch catches.
Ettin, who finesses her clients’ online dating profiles and helps them establish their dating priorities, has a pragmatic approach to modern dating. “I don’t believe in bashert,” she told the New York Jewish Week, using the Yiddish word for “preordained” that is colloquially used to mean “soulmate.” “I don’t believe in one person for everyone. I think many people can make you happy for different reasons.”
Ettin, 42, founded her modern-day matchmaking business, A Little Nudge, in 2011. The name, Ettin clarifies, is pronounced “nuhdge” — as in gentle encouragement — and not the Yiddish “noodge,” meaning to annoy or pester. “Only my mom is allowed to call me that,” Ettin quips. “But I’m giving people a push. I’m giving them the tools they need to get out there.”
Though Ettin’s clients are not exclusively Jewish, she estimates that some 15 percent of them are — “which is a lot more than the national average!” Ettin joked. (A recent Pew study found that Jews make up about 2.4% of the U.S. population.)
Through her business, Ettin offers three levels of service, with pricing from $500: The standard “little nudge” includes a Zoom consultation, after which Ettin will write a client’s online dating profile and select their pictures. Her aim, she said, is to help people put their best proverbial foot forward while simultaneously ensuring that they don’t represent themselves inaccurately.
“Anything that lets your personality shine, shows your quirks and stays positive,” she advises. “But it’s more than a profile. It’s being proactive on the sites that makes you successful.”
The next tier is A Little Nudge Plus, in which Ettin also presents her clients with some handpicked matches and helps draft those initial, particularly anxiety-inducing messages. Finally, there’s “A Little Nudge Platinum,” the whole enchilada of Ettin’s services, in which clients hand over their dating reins: Ettin will swipe and message on her client’s behalf — but only to the point of setting up the first meeting. “Ultimately, they’re the ones going on the date,” she said.
Ettin’s approach to dating is born out of first-hand experience: Formerly an economist at Fannie Mae in Washington, D.C., Ettin was an early adopter of online dating in 2001. Using the Jewish dating site JDate, she relied on her savvy with statistics to usher her through the complicated process, from talking online (and later, via app) to meeting in real life.
“I put two things I really liked together: online dating and spreadsheets,” Ettin said, explaining that she initially created the spreadsheet to ensure she didn’t write to the same person twice. Soon, however, she realized she could employ this tracking system to ask questions like, “What’s my response rate if I write to somebody? If I make little tweaks, is the probability of getting a response higher? What’s my conversion rate if this person writes back? Do we go on a date?”
Eventually, friends started to notice how successful she was at garnering online dates and requested her assistance with their profiles, inspiring Ettin to quit her job at Fannie Mae and make the jump to full-time date doctoring. “Best decision I ever made,” she declared.
Recently, Ettin made another big, long-awaited jump: After 19 years in Washington, she moved to Brooklyn Heights in December 2022. Ettin had found she was making frequent trips to New York, both to meet with clients and — “here’s where it gets fun,” she said — to compete in the live pun competition Punderdome (she even won the show’s last outing in June).
“I finally decided, if not now, then when?” she said, quoting Jewish sage Hillel. “There’s usually something holding you back — either you’re taking a class, or you’re in a relationship, or you’re… something. It was the first time in a long time where nothing was keeping me anymore.”
So far, Ettin is adjusting to her new scene in Brooklyn Heights nicely, calling it the perfect mix of “quiet and quaint,” perfect for walking her dog, Scruffy, a mutt she suspects is a terrier dachshund mix. She often heads to Times Square to “feed my Broadway addiction,” she said.
“Everything about me makes sense here,” said Ettin, who declined to share her relationship status. (“I generally try not to mix personal and professional,” she said.)
Of course, the same issues that plague any New Yorker plague her as well, like attempting to cook a seven-pound brisket for Passover in her New York-sized oven. (Per Ettin’s review, it was “a mess, but delicious.”) For 20 years, Ettin has hosted a Passover seder in her home; it’s one of many ways she celebrates her cultural Judaism.
Growing up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Ettin was raised Jewish and had a bat mitzvah. It wasn’t until she was a student at Cornell University that she began to connect with her culture on a deeper level. That’s mainly because she missed the taste of matzah ball soup — a powerful motivator for an 18-year-old living away from home for the first time. Ettin attended Reform synagogue in college, and upon relocating to Washington, helped to lead services for young professionals at the historic Sixth & I synagogue alongside Jewish rocker Rick Recht.
Despite what “Sex and the City” and Instagram meme accounts have led many to believe, Ettin doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that dating is harder in New York City than other locales. “Every city has its quirks,” she said. “And there are so many options, and I know that does frustrate people. The paradox of choice, right? When you have so many things to choose from, you’re not actually happy with your choice. There’s always another person a swipe away.”
“But I think dating in New York can be great,” she added. “Most people complain about their own city, but every city can’t be the worst, you know? Are you going to come across every stereotype you think you’re going to come across in New York City? Absolutely, but are you also going to come across amazing people who are looking for what you’re looking for? Yeah, but it takes digging.”
One trend Ettin has noticed among her Jewish clients: Many of them want to meet someone who is also Jewish, even if they’re not particularly observant. That’s good news for any Jewish single looking for a partner — and maybe even better news for any bubbe-figure who wants a loved one to be searching for a Jewish partner.
Ettin’s advice for meeting another Jewish New Yorker is simple: “Pay for the filters on the dating apps so they can filter religion,” she said. “Because it cracks me up when they say ‘This is a dealbreaker’ and then they refuse to pay the $20 to actually use the filter to filter for religion.”
This advice holds true for whatever your dealbreakers are, Ettin advises. “If those checkboxes are there on the dating sites, use those to your advantage,” she said. “On the flip side, just because the option is there doesn’t mean you have to use it. Just because you can search by every inch of height, does not mean you need to.”
While her speciality may be online dating, Ettin believes it’s still possible for people to connect and fall in love IRL in NYC. “Put yourself in places where you want to be, anyway, and then if you meet someone it’s an added bonus,” she advises. “If going to synagogue is important to you, find one that you really like and then you’re already in your element. If you meet someone there, it’s an added bonus. If you want to take some kind of Israeli cooking class, you’re already enjoying yourself because it’s something you want to be doing. If you meet someone it’s an added bonus.”
No matter your situation, or what you’re seeking in a partner, central to much of Ettin’s advice is asking for the things you want. “I think it’s not only OK but encouraged to tell people exactly the types of behaviors you want,” she said. “If you are in a relationship and you want flowers three times a year, tell your partner, ‘I want flowers three times a year.’ You’re not going to be upset when they then give you flowers because you told them — you’ll be happy.”
These types of communication tools were invaluable to Elizabeth Cutler, a former client who recently moved from a career in government “into the creating writing chapter” of her life. She said Ettin “really helped me refresh myself and to present the best version of myself” and to “really listen to my instincts.”
“Everyone is trying to do what they think they’re supposed to do in dating, and sometimes that gets a little mixed up with putting forward authentic selves,” Cutler, 35, said of the wisdom she learned. “It’s good to give people grace around that.”
On “Jewish Matchmaking,” Ben Shalom famously says she has “the hardest job in the world.” Ettin’s approach, meanwhile, is a bit more practical. “The desire to meet someone or find a partner is never going to go away,”she said. “If the economy changes, or anything changes, people will still have the desire to meet a partner. I think I will always have work to do.”
Ultimately, when it comes to love, Ettin doesn’t believe in luck. “I believe in hard work,” she said.
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The post This New York-based dating coach has sage advice for Jewish singles appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Twitter AI’s Spree of Antisemitic Answers Provokes European Union Meeting as US Military Signs Deal With Company
European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 17, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman
Following an update earlier this month to xAI’s Grok chatbot which resulted in a wave of antisemitic and pro-Hitler responses to users on X/Twitter, the European Commission summoned representatives from billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company to a Tuesday meeting to explain themselves.
The move comes after Italian parliament member Sandro Gozi urged for the Commission to begin a formal inquiry, as “the case raises serious concerns about compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) as well as the governance of generative AI in the Union’s digital space.”
Poland’s Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski had also called for the Commission to take action and said that the Polish government would consider banning the app.
Due to the size of the X platform, the site falls under the European Union’s DSA which requires transparency about operations. Musk’s app already faces multiple investigations by the Commission.
On Wednesday, following the initial antisemitic statements from Grok, X’s Linda Yaccarino, the company’s CEO, announced her resignation.
On Monday, xAI announced a $200 million deal to provide Grok to the US military. The company stated that “under the umbrella of Grok For Government, we will be bringing all of our world-class AI tools to federal, local, state, and national security customers.” Customers in the plan could “use the Grok family of products to accelerate America – from making everyday government services faster and more efficient to using AI to address unsolved problems in fundamental science and technology.”
The Pentagon also announced on Monday other AI companies would receive contracts, including Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.
Douglas Matty, chief digital and AI officer at the Defense Department, said that “leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.”
Also on Monday, Musk unveiled a new release to the AI capabilities on X. The Companions feature will allow users to interact with cartoon characters, including a mischievous fox and an anime-style goth girl named Ani.
On Tuesday, xAI put out a statement explaining that it had “spotted a couple of issues with Grok 4 recently that we immediately investigated & mitigated.” The company said it had “tweaked the prompts and have shared the details on GitHub for transparency. We are actively monitoring and will implement further adjustments as needed.”
The post Twitter AI’s Spree of Antisemitic Answers Provokes European Union Meeting as US Military Signs Deal With Company first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Synagogue, Holocaust Memorial Vandalized in Poland After Politician Denies Holocaust
An antisemitic slur spray-painted on the ruins of a former synagogue in Dukla, Poland. Photo: World Jewish Restitution Organization
Two Jewish sites in Dukla, Poland, were vandalized over the weekend mere days after Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Grzegorz Braun claimed gas chambers at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were fake and repeated an antisemitic blood libel in a live radio interview.
Vandals spray-painted the word “F–k” followed by a Star of David on the ruins of a former synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and a memorial commemorating Holocaust victims located at the entrance of the Jewish cemetery in Dukla was defaced with a swastika and the word “Palestine,” according to the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). The memorial honors Jews of Dukla and the surrounding areas who were murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust.
The two Jewish sites in Dukla are cared for by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ), which was established in 2002 by the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and the WJRO to protect and commemorate Poland’s Jewish heritage sites.
“These hateful acts are not only antisemitic, but they are also attempts to erase Jewish history and desecrate memory,” said WJRO President Gideon Taylor in a released statement on Tuesday. “Polish authorities must take swift and serious action to identify the perpetrators and ensure the protection of Jewish heritage sites in Dukla and across the country.”
“The vandalism of Jewish sites in Dukla—with swastikas and anti-Israel slurs—is not an isolated act,” insisted Jack Simony, director general of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF), in a statement to The Algemeiner. The nonprofit focuses on preserving the memory of the Jewish community in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) and maintains the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the last remaining synagogue in town.
“While we cannot say definitively that it [the vandalism] was sparked by Grzegorz Braun’s Holocaust denial, his rhetoric contributes to an atmosphere where hatred is emboldened and truth is under assault,” added Simony. “Braun’s lies are not harmless — they are dangerous. Holocaust denial fuels antisemitism and, too often, violence. This is why Holocaust education matters … because when we fail to confront lies, we invite their consequences. Memory must be defended, not only for the sake of the past, but for the safety of our future.”
On July 10, a ceremony was held commemorating the 84th anniversary of the 1941 Jedwabne massacre, when hundreds of Polish Jews were massacred – mostly by their neighbors – in the northeastern town in German-occupied Poland. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries and faith leaders including Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Israeli Deputy Ambassador Bosmat Baruch. Groups of anti-Israel and far-right activists — including MEP Braun and his supporters – tried to disrupt the event by holding banners with antisemitic slogans and blocking the vehicles of the attendees, according to Polish radio.
Hours later, during a live radio broadcast, Braun falsely claimed the Auschwitz gas chambers were “a lie” and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum was promoting “pseudo-history.” He also claimed that Jewish “ritual murder is a fact.” Polish prosecutors launched an investigation into Braun’s comments, they announced that same day. Under Article 55 of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in Poland.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum issued a swift condemnation of Braun’s remarks and said it intents to pursue legal action. The Institute of National Remembrance — which is the largest research, educational and archival institution in Poland – also denounced Braun’s remarks, saying there is “well-documented” evidence supporting the existence of gas chambers. His comments were also condemned by the Embassy of Israel in Poland, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and the US Embassy in Warsaw, which said that his actions “distort history, desecrate memory, or spread antisemitism.” AJCF called on the European Parliament to consider disciplinary measures against Braun, including potential censure or expulsion.
Auschwitz Jewish Center Director Tomek Kuncewicz said Braun’s comments are “an act of violence against truth, against survivors, and against the legacy of our shared humanity.” AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson called the politician’s remarks “blatant and baseless lies,” while Simony described them as “a calculated act of antisemitic incitement” that “must be met with legal consequences and universal moral condemnation.”
The post Jewish Synagogue, Holocaust Memorial Vandalized in Poland After Politician Denies Holocaust first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Coalition of 400 Jewish Orgs and Synagogues Urge Teachers Union to Reverse Decision Cutting Ties with ADL
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Photo Credit: ADL.
Following a vote by the National Education Association (NEA) on July 6 to end its relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 400 Jewish communal groups, education organizations, and religious institutions have come together to call for the influential teachers union to change course.
“We are writing to express our deep concerns about the growing level of antisemitic activity within teachers’ unions, particularly since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023,” the letter to NEA President Becky Pringle stated. “Passage of New Business Item (NBI) 39 at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly this past weekend, which shockingly calls for the boycott of the Anti-Defamation League, is just the latest example of open hostility toward Jewish educators, students and families coming from national and local teachers’ unions and their members.”
In addition to the ADL, signatories of the letter included American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, #EndJewHatred, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis), Combat Antisemitism Movement, Democratic Majority for Israel, StandWithUs, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zioness Movement, and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
The group told Pringle that “we have heard directly from NEA members who have shared their experiences ranging from explicit and implicit antisemitism within the union to a broader pattern of insensitivity toward legitimate concerns of Jewish members – including at the recently concluded Representative Assembly. We are also deeply troubled by a broader pattern of union activity over the past 20 months that has targeted or alienated Jewish members and the wider Jewish community.”
The letter to Pringle included an addendum providing examples of objectionable rhetoric. These named such incidents as the Oakland Education Association (OEA) putting out a statement calling for “an end to the occupation of Palestine” and the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) accusing Israel of genocide.
The coalition of 400 organizations urged the NEA to “take immediate action” and suggested such steps as rejecting NBI 39, issuing a “strong condemnation” of antisemitism within the union, drafting a plan to counter ongoing antisemitism in affiliate chapters, and opposing “any effort to use an educator’s support for the existence of Israel as a means to attack their identity.”
ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X that “Excluding @ADL’s educational resources from schools is not just an attack on our org, but on the entire Jewish community. We urge the @NEAToday Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”
The post Coalition of 400 Jewish Orgs and Synagogues Urge Teachers Union to Reverse Decision Cutting Ties with ADL first appeared on Algemeiner.com.