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THE JEWISH NEWS

According to the Encyclopedia
Judaica , arranged marriages
continued from the biblical time
to the talmudic period, where the
heads of families mostly were re-
sponsible for choosing their chil-
dren's mates. Later, in the 13th
century, the term shadchan
made its way into rabbinic liter-
ature in a discourse on fees to be
paid if an arrangement does not
bloom into marriage.
Then, matchmakers made 2 to
3 percent of the dowry paid by the
bride's family. Now they charge
monthly or flat fees for their ser-
vices.
Irene Slobin got into the act
professionally six years ago. Af-
ter 31 years of making matches
among friends and relatives, Ms.
Slobin was encouraged by a
friend to turn her "knack" for
knowing other people's tastes into
a business.
She took the advice and
opened Irene's Dating Service in
West Bloomfield.
Since then, she has branched
into the general community but
still maintains a client base that
is approximately 20 percent Jew-
ish.
For $99 a month, she provides
for her client a database-gener-
ated list of attractive ("all of my
clients are good-looking," she
says), heterosexual singles.

Although she makes a decent
living from the practice, she con-
fesses that she does what she
does because she loves it.
"If you put goodness in the
world, I find that it comes back
to you," she said, adding that she
has had over 100 matches that
resulted in marriage. "I always
say, would love to help you find
the love of your life and dance at
your wedding.' And I mean it."
Others won't take a cent for
their services.
Alicia Nelson said she finds
great satisfaction in crossing off
names from her list, an act that
means one single person has met
his or her beshert.
Recently, she and her hus-
band, a co-conspirator, received
their greatest reward. A couple
they introduced several years ago
invited them to be guests at their
son's bar mitzvah. The parents
included a note: 'We feel that you
made this all possible."
"It's nice if you can make a
Jewish couple," Ms. Nelson said.
The one commonality Ms.
Slobin and Ms. Nelson have is
that neither will guarantee the
results of their work.
Maybe they should. Out of
more than 100 combined match-
es they have made, only three
have divorced.

❑

LOVE page 3

While the divorce rate is 18 per- that in common, this excitement
cent in the Jewish community of transformation and rediscovery
overall, it is closer to 23 percent of self and Yiddishkeit, and where
in marriages where one spouse there are community organiza-
has converted to Judaism and tions and structures, synagogues
about 33 percent among inter- and chavurot that provide an op-
faith couples, according to City portunity to grow together, they
University of New York sociolo- reinforce each other's spiritual and
gy professor and demographer cultural and social growth," Mr:
Egon Mayer, Ph.D.
Lauffer says. "It's the folks on the
Armand Lauffer, a professor in periphery who are having the
U-M's School of Social Work and most trouble."
head of Project STaR, a Jewish
Dr. Mayer of CUNY agreed
communal service program at U- that the general divorce rate
M, suggests that the lack of com- among Jews is 18 percent. But he
munity continuity also plays into takes issue with other data be-
a higher divorce rate, particular- cause of a lack of an adequate
ly among intermarried couples.
sample size.
"People are as mobile geo-
'We typically take the totality
graphically and occupationally as of ever-married Jews and look at
a lot of other folks are, and they're how many have been divorced.
mobile in terms of the mates they That gives us a crude measure of
marry. That creates extended fam- the total divorce rate," he says.
ily networks that aren't strong. It
That said, Dr. Mayer offered
creates increasing pulls on the cou- some analysis of the numbers
ple to try to hold the marriage to- from the National Jewish Popu-
gether," he says.
lation Survey. Like Dr. Bayme, he
Yet, over the horizon is a dif- figures that the frequency of di-
ferent trend, one that bodes well vorce is linked to its social accept-
for Jewish marriages: An in- ability.
creasing emphasis on religious ob-
Beyond that, he relies on "soci-
servance.
ological horse sense" to deduce
'Within the Jewish communi- that the same factors that lead to
ty there seems to be two directions: divorce in other populations —
People are moving further away sex, money and family pressures
from the core and people are find- — underlie Jewish divorce.
ing a renewed commitment [to Ju-
"We assume, I would wager,
daism].
that alcoholism is a much less fre-
"For those couples who have quent reason for Jewish divorce

