A Match Made in Heaven? : 20-Something Packs ‘Em In for Discussions of Jewish Issues--and a Chance to Meet a Mate

Inside a room lit only by multicolored candles, young men and women mingle and sample pasta salad and cookies.

Soon they settle at assigned tables, an almost equal ratio of male to female at each, the overflow standing in back.

Tonight’s topic at 20-Something is business ethics. On similar occasions, the discussions have carried more provocative titles: “Fatal Attraction: Do You Love Me or Lust Me” or “Oh No! 30-Something! How to Deal With Growing Old!”

Week after week more than 140 Jewish singles from as far as Fullerton, Laguna Beach and Calabasas pack the Aish Center, a small blue-trimmed building sandwiched between a kosher bakery and an Israeli pizza parlor in the Pico-Robertson area just south of Beverly Hills. They pay $8 to meet, mingle and discuss the meaning of life, love, sex, success and, of course, God.

It’s Phil Donahue-comes-to-Judaism--with the potential for making a shiddach --a marital match.

At least that’s how Irwin Katsof sees it.

Katsof is founder of 20-Something, a weekly social-educational discussion group sponsored by Aish HaTorah, a worldwide Jewish outreach effort by Orthodox rabbis.

The group began in his living room 20 months ago. Katsof, who started the Los Angeles branch of Aish in 1982, was teaching a class called “Love, Dating and Marriage.” His apartment was so full that people stood on his balcony, listening from the windows.

Katsof was surprised by the overwhelming response. He realized there was a need in the Jewish community for events that combined socializing with learning.

Says Rabbi Nacham Braverman, 20-Something moderator and a full-time teacher at Aish: “People come for social motives, and when they are here they discover benefits they wouldn’t have anticipated. But we hope it doesn’t remain only social.”

They might seem strange bedfellows: the singles scene and ethical questions as seen through the Orthodox Jewish perspective.

But the weekly discussions have drawn many young Jews who claim little religious affiliation.

“People think that all the people who come to these kind of things are nebbishes (Yiddish for geek ),” says Katsof, 37. “They’re all healthy, normal people. A very with-it young crowd.”

20-Something, along with the equally popular “Love-Life Encounter” for singles over 30, has run weekly for 20 months. 40-something began in late July and its first meeting drew about 45 singles. A second 20-Something group has begun Monday nights to accommodate the Wednesday overflow.

While Jewish singles groups, even those featuring a lecture or educational topic, are nothing new, few have attracted and maintained interest. More than 2,600 different people have gone through 20-Something, and the Wednesday night scene has led to six marriages and one baby in the past 10 months.

By 7:30 p.m. the line to get into the Aish center is already halfway down the block.

The men and women--students, attorneys, engineers, psychologists--make small talk and eye one another. Some seem like old friends.

“I like the setting, I like the discussions, I like meeting people of similar backgrounds,” says Judy Rubin, a 29-year-old audiologist from Glendale, as she waits to enter. “This is a more comfortable setting than a singles bar. It’s also made me more interested in Judaism, restored my faith.”

Says Mark Belinfante, a 26-year-old salesman from Northridge: “I want to meet a Jewish girl. Where else can you go in L. A.? This is conversation, this is where you talk to people, hear their views.”

Braverman, a 34-year-old rabbi with a philosophy degree from Yale, says the idea is to provoke people to “think about their lives, their goals, their values, and help them gain what Judaism has to offer. We set the table--what they decide to eat is their business. It’s not all or nothing.”

And statistics show the Jewish population may need some help to maintain its U. S. identity. According to a 1991 study by the Council of Jewish Federations, the reproductive rate is low for American Jews, and intermarriage continues to rise. More than half of Jews wed since 1985 have married non-Jews, and only 28% of children from those marriages are being raised as Jews.

Of the 5.5 million people in the United States who say they and their children are Jewish, 4.4 million identify themselves as Jews by religion and 1.1 million claim Jewishness but have no religion. An additional 1.3 million Jewish-born people have converted to other religions.

Even for Jews who call themselves religious, affiliation with a synagogue or any Jewish organization is down, especially in the West. At most, only a quarter of Los Angeles County’s approximately 700,000 Jews are affiliated. In Orange County, it’s only 15% of the approximately 100,000 Jews.

Says Conservative Rabbi David Wolpe, an instructor at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles: “I have reservations about some of the things (Aish HaTorah) does, and I disagree religiously and intellectually with some of their positions. But I think that to the extent that they bring unaffiliated Jews to Judaism, it’s a wonderful thing.”

Rabbi Noah Weinberg, an American, founded Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem in 1974. There are now 10 Aish branches in cities across the world, including Toronto, London, New York and Washington. It is supported for the most part by local benefactors and donations. In Los Angeles, Aish has five full-time rabbis and offers 60 classes a month. Its special High Holiday services for 20-Something worshipers attract hundreds.

But in the beginning, Aish was mobile, going wherever people had a desire to learn.

“We were like a SWAT team, rabbis of the streets,” says Katsof, who earned a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Montreal and is finishing his rabbinical degree from Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem. “We would go to people’s homes or offices, whenever or wherever they wanted us . . . . Our motto was ‘have rabbi, will travel.’ That was very important part of our appeal. We weren’t an institution.”

Aish means fire in Hebrew, and Aish HaTorah means “Fire of the Torah.” The Torah refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible and represents the body of learning and tradition that is of central importance to Judaism. Torah in Hebrew means instructions, and the rabbis at Aish teach that the Torah is really just “instructions for living.”

Orthodox Jews, who are generally the most religiously observant, believe the Torah came directly from God. They differ from Conservative Jews, who try to remain traditional while reconciling modern study and historical criticism. Reform Jews are the most liberal and usually least observant group, emphasizing personal autonomy and social ethics. Reconstructionist Judaism focuses on the cultural aspects of Judaism.

And while Aish is unabashedly Orthodox, most of those attending their classes are Conservative or Reform Jews.

“I’ve lived in L. A. all my life and never felt a sense of community and identity,” says “Love-Life Encounter” regular Lauren Levene, 36, a legal assistant from Encino Hills who says she was raised Reform.

“It’s difficult to have that without a family, and being single. Aish provides that for me.”

But while Aish has found its community niche, some attendees have found even 20-Something heavy on Torah-promotion and light on social prospects.

“As proselytization goes, it’s low-key,” says one Conservative 27-year-old lawyer, a past participant in 20-Something.

“But I don’t like proselytization, and their objective is different from (the objectives of) those going to the programs. They offer a vision of Judaism that a large percentage of people think is false, and too simple.”

The West Los Angeles resident added that Ms. Right was nowhere to be found during his Aish visits.

Says a 28-year-old set-dresser from West Los Angeles, who considers herself Reform: “Right now my approach to Judaism is different from their approach. I felt like they wanted me to become Orthodox.”

In 1989, Aish got its building on Pico Boulevard. Even then they were careful in designing the center, trying to make it seem unlike a traditional synagogue.

The rabbis, too, are untraditional, at least in their backgrounds. All were raised in non-observant homes; one has a master’s degree in psychology from Harvard University and another was an attorney in Ireland. Braverman grew up with a Christmas tree in his house. All encountered Aish HaTorah while traveling through Israel, deciding later to make it their lives.

But Katsof believes those unorthodox pasts help them to better relate and appeal to people from secular backgrounds.

“We all went through the same craziness that everyone goes through--the power struggles, materialism, lack of values, lack of clarity and confusion,” he says. “Because of it, we’re much more effective educators. We can put ideas in a framework that a secular person who is disinterested in Judaism can relate to, and make it meaningful.

“People may not wake up every day and say, ‘What’s the meaning of life?,’ but they do think about ‘How do I meet someone?,’ ‘How do I know the person I want to marry, I love or if it’s just lust?’ ”