Jewish singles flock to Philadelphia matchmaking conference ‘YentaCon’

A convention of matchmakers are helping young Jews make love, not war.

Leading “yentas” from New York and around the world descended on Philadelphia Thursday and Friday for the inaugural “YentaCon,” billed as the “first Jewish matchmaking conference” in the country designed to match members of the Tribe. 

But these weren’t little old babushkas like in “Fiddler on the Roof.” These were next-gen millennial matchmakers, one as young as 25, delivering decidedly modern guidance, such as “Judaism and Sexuality,” to discerning singles.

“It’s the year of the yenta,” declared NYC yenta Bonnie Winston, who said that matchmakers are working overtime trying to pair up singles “looking for a Jewish connection” in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and amid a surge in antisemitism.

“We are all in one room to support one another, despite our differences, to help our Jewish clients find love,” she said to a sea of emphatic nods.

“The closer you get to Fiddler on the Roof-style matchmaking, the better it is,” said Ali Adler of “Matched by Ali,” adding that the emphasis on in-person, face-to-face meetups is back. “It’s as old-fashioned as you can get.”

At the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philly, one block from the Liberty Bell, it was kosher schnitzel, instead of cheesesteaks, on the menu — along with a healthy portion of kvetching, kvelling and kibbitzing.

The crowd, sporting “Yenta”-emblazoned fanny packs against a wall of heart-shaped balloons, included dozens of matchmakers and love coaches — both Hasidic and secular; rabbis both male and female; husband and wife matchmakers; black matchmakers, and one who’s part of a family of Lutheran ministers – with one mission: to help Jews meet and marry one another.

The female-heavy crowd, save for a few male matchmakers, including 31-year-old Nicholas Rosen of Washington Heights, plotzed when a phalanx of armed SWAT team guys entered the room for a security exercise and a matchmaker worth her weight screamed out, “Are they single?”

Indeed, the unofficial commandment, thou shalt get busy, was foremost on everyone’s minds.  During Rabbi Yisroel Bernath’s session, “Kabbalah of Love,” the “Love Rabbi” reiterated the group’s mission, declaring, “The greatest thing since sliced challah is getting someone married.”

Matchmakers showcased their clients during PowerPoint presentations: the bachelor from NYC “with a beach house in East Hampton,” the “quirky cult Disney addict,” the “self-made VC,” and the holy grail of matches — the “single Jewish doctor.” 

During Neisteter’s session on “Judaism and Sexuality,” discussions on the “sex-positive” aspects of Judaism inspired heated proclamations, “The Talmud says a man is obligated to satisfy his wife,” while another yenta chimed in, “It’s grounds for divorce if he doesn’t!”

Aleeza Ben Shalom, star of Netflix’s “Jewish Matchmaking,” told The Post she’s “reclaiming” the word yenta and “wants to spread a lot of seeds” to make Jewish connections. No Jewish singles during the evening took “spread your seed” edict too literally, as many left with only with a new phone number.

As one yenta put it, “When we have love and peace, we have hope — and we all need that,” Jewish or not. 

 

Brooklyn high school is a haven for Hitler-loving hooligans who terrorize Jewish teachers and classmates,

On Oct. 26, just three weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis, 40 to 50 teens marched through Origins HS in Sheepshead Bay waving a Palestinian flag and chanting “Death to Israel!” and “Kill the Jews!” staffers said.

The hateful procession was shocking even for Origins, a school rife with bias and bullying, insiders told The Post.

“I live in fear of going to work every day,” said global history teacher Danielle Kaminsky.

According to interviews with multiple staffers, and a Jewish student’s safety transfer request, recent hate incidents include:

• A student painted a mustache on his face to look like Hitler, and banged on classroom doors. When someone opened, he clicked his heels and raised his arm in the Nazi gesture, security footage shows.
• Three swastikas in one week were drawn on teachers’ walls and other objects, a manager found.
• A 10th-grader told Kaminsky, 33, who is Jewish, “I wish you were killed.”
• Another student called her “a dirty Jew” and said he wished Hitler could have “hit more Jews,” including her.
• Students pasted drawings of the Palestinian flag and notes saying “Free Palestine” on Kaminsky’s classroom door. One scribbled note that said simply, “Die.”

The teen tormentors have so far faced no serious discipline under interim acting principal Dara Kammerman, who has done little beyond contacting parents in an effort to practice “restorative justice,” staffers said.

“She is perpetuating an antisemitic environment and a school of hate,” said Michael Beaudry, campus manager of the Sheepshead Bay building that houses Origins and three other schools. “The students continue these behaviors because they know there won’t be any consequences.”

In response, the city Department of Education said it will launch a probe: “There is currently no evidence that these claims are true, but we are investigating the claims.” 

In a disturbing instance in late January, a group of boys came into Kaminsky’s classroom at the end of the day, and cornered her, laughing, she said.

“Miss Kaminsky, do you love Hitler?” one asked. 

“I was so taken aback,” she said. “I did not respond, and they all gave the heil Hitler sign.”

Frightened, Kaminsky quickly left her classroom.

One boy waved to his friends to chase her inside the building, a scene captured on security footage, Beaudry said.

Bill Maher gives blistering monologue on Biden age: ‘Walks like a toddler with a full diaper’

Late night host Bill Maher offered a brutal send up of President Biden’s age — which included the comedian delivering a sample State of the Union address as the 46th president while using a walker.

Biden, now 81, should lean into his years and spend less time trying deny the obvious, Maher said.

“Instead of trying to refute all the too old to be president slams, Joe must embrace them. Stop with the ‘I’m sharper than ever’ nobody’s buying that. Don’t try to deny the age thing lean into it. Lean in, lean in like you’re eating soup,” Maher, 68, said.

Biden should dump TikTok and trying to look cool to younger voters, Maher said, and instead reach out to older people — a demographic he described as “the Matlock crowd.”

“Just admit it say yes, I’m bad with names and I walk like a toddler with a full diaper. I believe in democracy,” he continued. “So next Thursday when the President delivers the State of the Union. I say he should let his old fart flag fly.”

Maher then aired a skit of himself as Biden shuffling to a podium with a walker — named “Walker One” — and delivering an error-riddled address to Congress. 

“My friends when I first came here as a senator Washington welcomed me with open arms, not the place to guy. And that is a virtue. You don’t want a young person in charge of our defense. We need a president who can stand up to Russia and say to its current president, Mr. Gorbachev, get off my lawn,” Maher quipped.

Questions about Biden’s age continue to dog his reelection campaign.

While his White House physicians insist Biden is fit as a fiddle, new questions have been raised since special counsel Robert Hur’s report which called the president an “elderly man with poor memory.”

Mohammed Murders a Frum Jewish Dentist in California

 

A 29-year-old man, Mohammed Abdulkareem, was arrested after shooting and killing an Orthodox Jewish dentist, Dr. Benjamin Harouni, at his practice in El Cajon, California, near San Diego.

According to police, Abdulkareem was a disgruntled patient and had rented a U-Haul pickup truck just an hour before the shooting.

The shooting occurred at Smile Plus Dentistry & Orthodontics on North Magnolia Avenue, where Abdulkareem allegedly opened fire with a handgun, killing one person and injuring a receptionist, Yareli Carrillo, 28, and a man in his 40s.

Abdulkareem was arrested just after 10pm on Thursday, and the firearm used in the shooting was recovered. The victim who died was found inside the office as the shooting was still ongoing and was taken outside by officers, where they attempted to perform lifesaving measures.

Misaskim of Los Angeles spent the night at the scene ensuring proper Kavod Hames.

Song of Bava Kama

 

Zera Shimshon Parshas Ki Sisa

 

Joseph Landa's squatter nightmare shows the madness of New York’s ‘tenant protections’

Retirees Susana and Joseph Landa are being terrorized by a squatter in their $2 million Queens home.

One Queens couple’s real-life horror story exposes the insanity of New York’s housing laws.

Retirees Susana and Joseph Landa, both 68, thought they’d landed a gem last October when they bought a $2 million home in Douglastown, Queens, near a family who could help look after their adult son with Down Syndrome.

But they have yet to move in, even as they’re stuck paying taxes and maintenance on the property.

Ben Flores, a former caregiver to the deceased previous owner, has been squatting on the property since January 2023, per court documents, and refuses to leave.

He’s even reportedly trying to rent out rooms in the house.

But city law grants “squatters rights” that frustrate any attempt to evict anyone who claims to have lawfully occupied a unit for at least 30 days; that let Flores call the cops on the Landas when they tried to enter the home they own along with an insurance inspector.

They’ve been to civil court five times to try to get him out; at a hearing in early January, he showed up without an attorney — which under the law halted proceedings, rather than forcing him to represent himself or forfeit.

More recently, he filed for bankruptcy, which under city law again blocks the owners from even continuing the case to get him out.

The Landas can’t even get another hearing until April; who knows what new “right” he’ll exploit by then?

Meanwhile, they’re stuck paying thousands in utility bills for the house: They say he’s vindictively left the windows open all winter.

And this case is far from unique: In early February, a pair of serial squatters trashed the Queens home where they had been living rent-free for nearly four years before fleeing, owing at least $48,000 in back rent. Other Queens landlords have struggled to evict tenants running brothels.

Then there’s the elderly Upper West Side couple abused by another rogue tenant in 2022 and drug-dealing squatters in a Bronx house in 2021.

Yet progressives in the Legislature keep pushing to pass “Good Cause Eviction,” a law that’d make it even harder to oust bad tenants statewide (while also imposing statewide rent control).

City and state, New York housing law goes so far to protect “tenants” that it enables the utterly unscrupulous — and the ideologues are looking to make it even easier for the abusers to turn innocents’ dreams into nightmares.

Shocking double standard of support for Ukraine and Israel

 

“The Ukrainians must stop fighting in case they defeat Putin.”

Have you heard any of our leaders say that in the last two years?

As Ukraine enters its third year of war it is striking how committed political leaders of all parties are to that war.

And not just here but across the West.

At home — Democrat or Republican — almost everybody is committed to arming Ukraine until victory.

They don’t want Ukraine to fight to a stalemate.

They don’t want it to stop just before winning.

They want it to beat Putin back.

So how strange it is that another war, involving a far closer ally, gets such different treatment.

The historian Niall Ferguson noted the curious double-standard this week after a visit to Israel.

In Washington, London and every other Western capital, political leaders are not saying that they will stick with Israel until it defeats Hamas.

They are not saying “Victory at any price and at any cost.”

Instead they are insisting that Israel stop its war against Hamas as soon as possible.

Charedi Draft Issue May Bring Down the Government

 

Dass Torah Confusion 

 Until Feb. 26, the assumption was that the current Israeli government is stable.

“Yes, of course, there were the horrific events of Oct. 7, but who has an interest in quitting the government and causing it to collapse?” many politicians would have told you.

But on Feb. 26, everything began to change. Israel’s High Court ruled that the government must issue a defense by March 24 against a petition seeking the nullification of a Cabinet administrative decision from last June, in which the Defense Ministry was told not to enlist ultra-Orthodox yeshivah students until the government had passed a new law on the matter by the end of next month.

If the government does not manage to pass the law by March 31, young haredi men will have to be recruited and budget allocations for their yeshivahs will be stopped.

“We are at an unprecedented point. This is the first time that even the right wing is demanding to reach a recruitment agreement that is difficult for the ultra-Orthodox to digest,” Ishay Cohen, the political analyst at the Kikar Hashabat ultra-Orthodox news site, tells JNS.

“Until now it was opposition versus coalition; now parties in the right-wing government coalition are also demanding change. And that is why, even if the High Court demands that the ultra-Orthodox be drafted—it will not be criticized by parts of the coalition,” Cohen says.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) dropped a bombshell on Feb. 28 by announcing that he will agree to put forward an ultra-Orthodox draft law “only if all parts of the coalition agree to it”—meaning that Benny Gantz and his National Unity Party would have to support it.

Watch the elimination of the Palestinan Police "Terrorist" Officer

 

תיעוד חיסול המחבל המתועב שביצע את הפיגוע בעלי. pic.twitter.com/iywvD7JVSh

— הלל ביטון רוזן | Hallel Bitton Rosen (@BittonRosen) February 29, 2024

כורע ויורה: תיעוד חיסול המחבל בעלי

https://t.co/BaDeKt5DaX pic.twitter.com/fdWS8Xp04C

— ערוץ 7 (@arutz7heb) February 29, 2024