The Virtual Writing Studio/PR Office of Esther D. Kustanowitz

There’s compelling evidence to suggest that 2008 is the Year of the Matchmaker. There seems to be a coalescence of various iterations of matchmaking happening, which I chronicled in “2008: Year of the Matchmaker?” last week’s article in the NY Jewish Week.

An excerpt:

2008 was about a week old when the influx of matchmaker-related services started hurling themselves like Anna Karenina on the tracks of my singles-columnist life. “Are you a matchmaker?” a reader from Israel queries. “Have you ever used a matchmaker?” asks a friend in Arizona. A matchmaker emails, not about a match, but to insist that I remove a benign blog announcement about one of her events. She is attempting to cleanse the internet of all mentions of her that aren’t glowing testimonials. The e-mails are constant — from SawYouAtSinai and JRetromatch; from individual matchmakers; from articles in newspapers, from blog posts, and of course, from my Facebook friends. Is 2008 the Year of the Matchmaker?

Year of the Matchmaker?” one friend snarked. “Is that like the Year of the Rat?” (Um, sometimes.) As the year continues, so does the trend. A newspaper requests a comment about matchmaking. A magazine pegs me to do an in-depth story about matchmaking, for virtually no money. (No thank you.) I get an e-mail about the “Make-a-Shidduch Foundation” name, which is only a “Shidduch” away from the “Wish” that another organization grants to kids with cancer.

And then there are the stories: Friend 1’s matchmaker told her she isn’t attractive enough for that yenta’s clientele. Friend 2 tells me of her matchmaker’s assessment: that — even though her salary is at least triple mine — she is unmatchable because she doesn’t have a college degree. Friend 3 notes that her matchmaker has matched her with men incapable of basic conversation, “not appropriate for her on any level.”

I know it works for some people, and God bless them. But I admit my bias: I don’t love matchmakers. I had a very lovely matchmaker on Saw You at Sinai, but no successful matches resulted. An offline matchmaker with a religious clientele first expressed horror at my “single, never-married” status (“What? Not divorced? Not widowed?”), and tried to match me with secular men opposed to Shabbat and kashrut, because in her book, that’s what Conservadoxy was. One religious blogger I know reported that her friend had uploaded a new photo to her online matchmaker, and received a note back from the shadchan with the word “EW” in the subject line and a body text that included “berating and ridiculing remarks regarding this woman’s picture.”

Thanks to everyone who helped out with this. I protected your identities, but am happy to identify you (with a link if you’d like…) with your permission…Read more here.

Recently, I noticed that Jews seem to be enjoying a bit of the improv….and wondered why. Was there something innately Jewish about the art of thinking on your feet, being in the moment and working without a script?

Check out the article, in Issue 4 of PresenTense Magazine, here.

Welcome new visitors–I hope you enjoy the new decor and aim to provide you with fresh content regularly. Tell your friends to visit and leave comments–I look forward to your feedback on this site.

And of course, because blogging is a constant, here are some recent posts you might enjoy:

Beliefnet
Is Change the Only Constant (New Amsterdam)

90210 Redux?

JDatersAnonymous
The Week in Singles Stories: Jewish Standard Edition
Random JDate Shoutout of the Week

MyUrbanKvetch
“Have You Met Ted?”: Josh Radnor Owns Up to Jewish Roots
Shin-Bet Blog
Purim Costumes and Conundra

And more always coming…

The new issue of PresenTense Magazine is out! See below for a sample of the laid-out magazine, or check here for a link to the TOC, to access individual articles, including my latest, “Jew’s Line Is It Anyway? Why The Chosen People Choose Improv.”

We’re churning out another issue for Israel’s 60th, so if you’re interested in advertising in that issue, or distributing either Issue 4 or the upcoming 5, let us know!

Where have I been all month? Between the Israelity Tour (read my blog posts here) and the Jewlicious Festival (http://jewliciousfestival.com), February was all about the West Coast for me. And seriously, the rumors are true: the February weather is much nicer in LA than in NYC. Since I got back, March has been all about my new nephew and, of course, settling back into something resembling a routine.

New singles columns in the Jewish Week:
“Looking Out for Number 2”
“Oddly Enough: Jewish Singles Edition”
“Don’t Worry: Be Single Happy”
“Status Symbol”

There’s also a new issue of PresenTense Magazine out…check it out, and especially my article about why the chosen people choose improv, here.

Until I get this site’s act together, feel free to check in with my other sites, MyUrbankvetch and JDatersAnonymous, to see all of my online endeavors and offline publications.

The Jewish Journal reprinted my column on chivalry…check it out here!

EstherK.com is under reconstruction. But in the meantime, please visit MyUrbanKvetch.com for the most frequent updates about publications, events and appearances. We’ll be back soon, so please stay tuned!

Why can’t singles just meet over a nice Shabbat dinner? This column focuses on an L.A.-based, rabbi-originated program to help Jewish singles in their 30s and 40s do just that.

Read “Table for More Than Two” here.

There’s been lots of press about this year’s GA, which devoted a plenary to Next Generation issues. I was honored to serve as a speaker for that plenary.

If you missed it, here’s a link to the video.

Full text of the delivered speech available at MyUrbanKvetch.com; click and let the link lead you…

After Yom Kippur, I found myself tapping away at my keyboard, Bradshawlike yet again, and dipping into the primordial ooze of “The Blame Game.”

Coming soon…gigs and conferences. You gonna be there?

October 21, American Zionist Movement Biennial, Evening Plenary (Newark, NJ)
October 28-30, Professional Leaders Project (Santa Monica, CA)
November 8, Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival, “Matchmaker: In Search of a Kosher Man” discussion. 9pm (New Brunswick, NJ)
November 12, UJC General Assembly, Next Generation Panel, 9-10:15 am (Nashville, TN)