HaBitza

We are so excited that we’ve been quoted in an article by Yael Brygel in the Jerusalem Post (in the In Jerusalem section and online at jpost.com) called Swamped with Singles, about the very popular Israeli TV show, Srugim and the Katamon singles scene!   This is the link to the full article and here is the quote about us:

RECOGNIZING THE large number of singles in Jerusalem who may be grappling with some of the issues that being single entails, two Jerusalemites, Vera Resnick and Deena Levenstein, have created the Web site habitza.com, a forum for discussion about single life and the dos and don’ts of the dating scene.

“One of the ideas is to clear up gray areas and misunderstandings, to reach some sort of consensus,” explains Resnick.

While some people may be reluctant to refer to the single phenomenon as a problem, feeling as though this may create a stereotype about what it means to be single, Levenstein, who is single, uses the term openly to describe the singles phenomenon.

“The problem is that people want to be married and they aren’t,” she says. “My research is done at Shabbat meals. I often ask people if they want to be married, and most say that they do. The question that I ask is ‘Well, then, what is going on?’ One guy said there is a lot of taboo around the whole topic. He said that it is seen as bad to admit that there is a problem or to even use the word ‘problem.’ In general, we live in a time where you don’t call anything a problem.

“To me, I wonder what is wrong with admitting that there is something wrong. I know it makes you more vulnerable, but I think it is really important. When he said there is a lot of taboo around it and the more we talk about it the better, I thought that for me right now the place to do so is habitza.com. I see the Web site as a place for talking about almost everything. I think it is a place to talk about it from a humorous perspective, from a philosophical perspective, about all the issues that surround it. In my ideal world, I would want habitza.com to be one of the resources when it comes to this topic of singles dating for marriage, and everyone who is about to enter the dating world for marriage or just dating or who knows someone who is part of it will know that this one of the places they should go,” says Levenstein.

Photo by pingu1963-waiting for my new computer! at flickr.