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By Steve Israel

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CHAPTER FIVE:Those Who don’t Fit the Model: Family Situations and Status in Judaism and the Jewish World

C: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

20. Single-Minded?
(Two to two and a half hours; can be split into two sessions)

• Ask the members of the group to try and interview a single Jewish person about their situation, prior to the group activity. As part of this request, you will require part of your preceeding session, in order to invest a little time to:
  • Help them prepare a few questions about the person’s attitudes towards single life, Judaism and involvement in the organised Jewish community;
  • Address and ready them for the sensitivity they will need to display, while they are conducting the interview.
• Afterwards, ask those who succeeded in doing the interview to come ready to present their findings to the group.
  If there are many who succeeded in the task, allow the first slot of the session for work in small groups initially to pool their findings and impressions; then, within the context of the larger group, ask for a few volunteers.
  The presentations should be focused on the three issues mentioned above and should include the interviewer’s observations or conclusions.
• Basing yourself on the material in the background section to this chapter, present to the group the reasons why singles (Ravakim - – "empty" people) have traditionally attracted negative stereotypes within the community.
• Bring in this quote from Bereishit:

  For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they shall become one flesh.
  Bereishit 2:24

• Around this, explain the traditional idea of moving directly from the parental family to the new, married status of one’s own family.
  • How do the group react to the idea?
  • Do they see it as an ideal?
  • Do they see themselves doing this? Why/why not?
    Discuss why so many young people today opt for a prolonged intermediate period.
• We suggest reading the following two articles and working with them as indicated:
  Ruth Mason’s article, “Single By Choice” and Rose Levinson’s article, “Standing Alone at Sinai: Shame and the Unmarried Jewish Woman” (both appear in accessible anthologies - for details, please see the bibliography).
  If you can get hold of both, have half the group read one and half the other, then divide the group up into fours (two from each article) and ask them to present the articles and discuss their reactions. If only one is available, it should first be read and discussed in pairs.
• The group is to outline and plan a campaign that they would propose to get more singles involved in the Jewish community:
  • Take off by asking the group to suggest reasons why more singles who have left home (or are of home-leaving age) are not involved in the community.
  • Following this, they should try and analyse those needs of this group that the Jewish community could conceivably begin to address.
  • Finally, a project, or campaign of activities, should be suggested and planned - possibly including an advertising campaign aimed at bringing single people into the community.