Upper West Side Story Poem by gershon hepner

Inhabiting apartments where the compass
turns to the Upper West Side, single Jews
who’re modern orthodox live on Columbus,
Broadway, even Riverside, whose views
of Hudson River are spectacular,
while some to West End Avenue may cling,
Yeshivish language their vernacular,
their goal to have an Ohav Shalom fling.
For twenty-, thirtysomethings it’s a chance
to meet so many partners who are not
beshert that they forget about romance,
and often look behind, like Mrs. Lot,
to see if those they have abandoned may
be better than the ones they’re chasing. Gaucher
than those who have abandoned frumkeit, they
insist that their relationships be kosher.
So many of them claim that they are shomer
negiah, fondling without phalluses,
they learn, lip-servicing this great misnomer,
their major option seems to be paralysis.
With knitted yarmulkes upon the head,
and loins for dating the like-minded girt,
one wonders if they ever will be wed,
or whether they’re forever doomed to flirt.

Inspired by an article by Jennifer Bleyer in the NYT, August 9,2008 (“Marriage on Their Minds”) :
The scene after services at a synagogue on 95th Street. “It’s such a huge population, ” said Baruch November about the local supply of eligible men and women. The Westmont is home to large numbers of young Orthodox Jews, and because pressing elevator buttons is forbidden on the Sabbath, which begins Friday evening, the many young people who had been invited to dinners in the building were hiking up multiple flights to reach their destinations. Young men wearing dark suits pressed against the walls as young women in pencil skirts and high heels carefully made their way up the stairs, balancing berry pies and dishes of potato salad in their arms.One of the dinners took place in the 12th-floor apartment of Baruch November, a 31-year-old Orthodox man. In the living room, a score of young men and women perched on futons and folding chairs, waiting in slightly awkward silence for the meal to begin. After chanting traditional blessings over wine and challah, Mr. November and his three roommates laid out a buffet of roast turkey, stewed meatballs and noodle kugel. But even as the guests dug in hungrily, they cast furtive glances around the room, looks that all seemed to pose the same question: Is my soulmate here? Although dating is a major preoccupation of the vast number of single twenty- and thirtysomethings, it’s hard to think of a group that so completely chooses to live in a neighborhood based on dating opportunities as the city’s young Orthodox Jews. And the Upper West Side, an increasingly Orthodox enclave, has over the past four decades emerged as courting central for modern Orthodox singles from across the country and around the world... Even as the young, unattached Orthodox Jews of the Upper West Side gravitate to such scenes, parents back home are sometimes less happy about the way their offspring are spending their courting years. “My parents don’t want me here, ” Mr. November confided after the dinner in his Westmont apartment. “They don’t think it’s a good atmosphere. “I understand what they’re saying. But I think it’s just a matter of being patient.” He still feels optimistic, he said, about meeting the right person. By the end of that night, with the wine bottles empty, shots of schnapps were passed around as Mr. November and his friends chatted comfortably with one another.


8/11/08