From Russia, with Love, in America

Moscow Times:

Single White Russian

By Masha Rumer

	Dina and Boris Dukhin     Dina and Boris Dukhin, pictured in a wedding photo from 2005, met through JDate.com.

Dina Dukhin was a busy 25-year-old MBA student in the suburbs of Chicago when she started to feel that something was missing from her life. "There were no single people around me. Everybody I know got married really early," said Dukhin, who was born in Baku, the capital of present-day Azerbaijan.

So she signed up for an Internet dating service, JDate.com, to meet a marriage-minded man. The next day, she got an e-mail from a user called MalenkiyPrintz, which means Little Prince in Russian. His real name was Boris. When they first spoke to each other on the phone, they ended up chatting till 4 a.m.

Dina and Boris fell in love, got engaged four months later and had a big wedding at a Russian restaurant in Chicago. They are now the parents of a baby girl named Nadya.

"We had so much in common -- we could just talk forever. It's like a fairy tale," Dina Dukhin, now 28, said without a trace of a Russian accent.

The Dukhins are among the many immigrants from the former Soviet Union, now living in the United States, who have embraced the culture of online dating. For those seeking a mate with similar roots, the Internet is often an efficient way to find potential partners -- and perhaps even marital bliss.

Since many Russian speakers in the United States are of Jewish descent, a popular choice is JDate, a dating service aimed at Jewish singles. The service has more than 30,000 Russian-speaking users in the United States, said Gail Laguna, a spokeswoman for Spark Networks, JDate's parent company.

Indeed, the demand has been so strong that a Russian-language site is in the works. Laguna said JDate.ru was expected to launch in the second quarter of 2007.

"People of the former Soviet Union belong to a relatively closed community and therefore are looking for a partner who's mentally, culturally, linguistically similar to them," the spokeswoman said.

Like other large dating sites, JDate allows users to search for a mate by language spoken and place of birth. That was how Boris Dukhin, a software engineer originally from Minsk, got in touch with his future wife, Dina.

Boris Dukhin, now 30, was looking for someone who spoke his mother tongue and had emigrated as a teen, like himself. Otherwise, "after some point, some jokes don't make sense," he said. "Eventually you run out of things to say."

Of course, it's not always easy to take the plunge into online dating. Some potential users are concerned about the risks of dealing with strangers on the Internet. Others don't want to seem desperate, like "something didn't work out in your life," said Lev, a 32-year-old software engineer from St. Petersburg who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He signed up anyway. After the end of the high-tech boom in Silicon Valley, immigration slowed down, making it hard to meet new compatriots. "People are sitting at work, driving around in cars," said Lev, who declined to give his last name. "Practically all single Russian Jewish people in the Bay Area that I know are on JDate."

"It's very tough with young women here," he added. "The demand is high, but the supply is low."

The appeal of online dating has spread well beyond Silicon Valley computer nerds. In New York's community of Sephardic Jews from Uzbekistan -- known as Bukharan Jews -- finding a mate is no longer limited to "the old fashioned, let-my-grandmother-introduce-me way," said 27-year-old Milana Khodorkovskaya, originally from Tashkent.

The Bukharan community has retained many of its traditions, but it has accepted online dating. It even boasts its own web site: Bjews.com, complete with personal ads and a "Hunk and Beauty of the Year" competition.

Khodorkovskaya, who works in the finance sector, knows many people who have found dates or spouses on JDate, but she isn't a member yet. "I did not seem to like anyone there last time I checked," she said.

Not all immigrants are determined to find a mate with identical roots. In fact, some have used online dating services to connect with partners from different backgrounds.

Maria, 35, a web developer in New York, wanted to steer clear of Russian men after she left St. Petersburg and her marriage ended. She was turned off by the sexual politics of men acting "superior and women [having to] just be obedient and then it would work," said Maria, who declined to give her last name. "Americans are more respectful to women than Russian men."

She started looking for a non-Russian on eHarmony.com and Tickle.net. She didn't have much luck there, however, and is now seeing a Russian man she met through LiveJournal.com.

Odessa native Olya Livshin also had a distaste for run-of-the-mill Russian males. A graduate student in Chicago, she went on JDate and AmericanSingles.com several years ago to look for a soulmate who shared her passion for literature and Andrei Tarkovsky films.

"I couldn't make a connection because a lot of people were very generic and American or very generic and Russian," she recalled. "The Americans watched football and the Russians ... liked getting drunk and eating pelmeni." [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Comments

[Libertarian]

First, one does not have to be a high wage earner to understand the benefits of a free market as opposed to one that is governmentally regulated, the benefits of an unbalanced pro-Israel & muscular foreign policy. Unfortunately, it seems to be relegated to a male world view and more so in the Jewish community. As for the left wing angry femawacko daughters of our people, and those of our sons who are all too soft spoken, let me start by saying, what a mess! Its a disgrace and it drives intrmarriage rates through the roof. Feminism has obliterated patriarchal influence not to mention dominance. Women still crave a dominant man, the very element of our society that they obliterated. Which explains why they are left wing. Its a sexual proclivity, a craving for the enemy to win and dominate them. Most self resepcting Jewish men cannot compete with that.

If you notice, most intermarried Jewish women are very good wives to their non-Jewish more dominant husbands, as opposed to Jewish wives in their interaction with Jewish husbands. While non-Jewish wives are usually good wives are more often than not good wives to their Jewish husbands. unless said Jewish male is a hard case in their emaculation. more than enough girliemen to go around our community.

To my observant brothers, I tell them to stop searching for women that inherited being Jewish but to find a woman who is converting or just converted. Many third world women are finding their way to Judaism. I have been to orthodox synagouges in third world and their are viable wives for our observant brethern who are not affiliated withthe moeny to satisfy the pecuniary requirements for our women.

Orthodox or not, if you are not a doctor or a lawyer, you will not have a Jewish wife. unless you are non-orthodox and a freaky leftist, you might get a Tikkun Olam hippie.

Yet, beign that most Jewish women are now feminists. Why would you want to contend with an enemy in your own home? What are Western women offering? If you wanto Jewiwsh kids, becoem observant and go to Chabad. the women who gravitate to Chabad tend to cleanse themselves of at least the insane elements of gender feminism. however, most people who gravitate to Chabad are right wing men.

I am a low status, right wing Jewish male and failed in my quest for a Jewish wife. Not being observant, finding a virtuous converted women was not an option. So I just went ahead and intermarried even though i do not beleive that Jewish people should be intermarried. I also do not beleive that Jewish men should be marginalized, nelgelected, rejected, bullied and remain alone.

One last thing you should try is to find a Jewish woen through a conservative dating site, a 'conservative singles' type thing. And thereafter, if, it fails, and since the sisterhood of the west are perversly militant, I extoll the virtures of South East Asian women. and from that pool of man loving talent, just go ahead and intermarry.

Once we resolve feminism, and other tenents of left wing politics in our community, intermarriage is the only way most Jewish men can marry (happily).

to all the angry women and soft spoken men, please send me your hate m-al-e and send it with bad intentions.

[Dissertation Sample]

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[writing a dissertation]

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[inessa rifkin]

Honey, I am principal of the Russian school of Math in Newton, lots of my graduates are very smart girls and at the beginning of building their professional carriers right now. They are smart, beautiful and for the most part republican. I suspect that they are 10 years younger, but believe me, it’s Ok. Just give me your email and I will give it to some of them. If you won’t find your future wife, at least you will find some young Jewish woman who are not brain washed and successfully survived their liberal professors.

[jrtelegraph]

Dear RZ,

Perhaps you are giving up to soon. A few years ago we were at a wedding of a young man, whose friends said about his bride, that she "perfectly matches his unreasonably high standards". You deserve nothing less. Lubavitcher Rebbe once said to a man who was complaining about difficulty in finding his match, that one should look for her, like somebody who is looking for a just lost diamond.
As far as a marrying out, please think carefully about this step. Few of our personal decisions affect the Jewish people as a whole. This one would, because this would be an active decision that your future is not with us. In Jewish tradition we use the term "schmad" oneself, or destroy oneself for somebody who does such a thing. Why? Because your Jewish family would never come into existence. It is a heavy price to pay for political views, which could change by the way. So, if you can not find a nice Jewish Republican lady, look for an independent one. After all, you need only one.

With wishes of much success!

jrtelegraph

[RZ]

I haven't had much luck with JDate and I'll explain why. I am a Soviet Jew who immigrated to the USA in the late 70s' from Ukraine as a small child and many of us tend to lean towards the moderate conservative side of politics and vote Republican as adults (see Volokh Conspiracy - Soviet Jews and the Liberal Jewish Establishment). JDate is overwhelmingly liberal and caters to the Jewish liberal establishment, which I don't associate with for numerous reasons - one being that I don't pander to socialist ideals and make too much money to vote Democrat and see my taxes go to lowlife deadbeats in the form of welfare checks. As soon as JDate women read my profile and saw that I was not a liberal brainwashed idiot like them, courtesy of their socialist professors,I was overlooked for some other pansy who's profile was littered with anti-Bush rhetoric. After a month of back and forth nonsense on JDate and getting hateful emails blasting me for being a Republican, I terminated my account and will resort to other means for finding a suitable mate. I hate to say this, but I am seriously considering dating non-Jewish women because I am sick of running into Jewish women who are too liberal and treat me like a Nazi sympathizer as soon as they know I am a registered Republican. If this is how they see me, then perhaps they've given me good reason to abandon my fellow Jewish women and find love among Gentile women. Even many of my fellow Soviet Jewish women today are embracing liberalism and leaving little hope for me. I won't change my political views for anybody and feel like an outcast and minority. Am I alone in this dilemma, or are there more of you out there like me?