Good News for Single Druse

What’s harder than finding a nice Jewish boy to date? Finding a nice Drusish boy to marry.

Joining the ever-increasing ranks of internet dating sites that target specific affinity or ethnic groups is the new DruzeDate.com. (According to the article, Druse and Druze are both acceptable spellings, so take your red pens and step away from the computer, would-be editors.)

Dr. Nissim Dana [author of two novels on the Druse and a current professor at the Academic College of Judea and Samaria who was formerly the director of Druse affairs at the Religous Affairs Ministry] pointed out that, since the founding of Israel in 1948, there have been only 80 cases of Druse men marrying non-Druse women. In each case the man was cast out of the Druse community “as if he had died.” “They even erase his name from the records,” said Dana.

There are only two cases of women marrying non-Druse. Both women were killed. “One of these cases took place in Rama. The girl was killed but no official investigation was made,” said Dana. The other girl – Idtihaj Hassun, from Daliat al-Carmel – was killed by her family and members of her community after she eloped with a local Arab man, he said. “A Druse woman marrying a non-Druse is looking at certain death,” said Dana. “In both of these cases, the women were killed because in the Druse community there is no bending on this issue for women. Only men can get away with it.”

One of the Druse men interviewed in the article, named by his initials (A.K.) only, comes from a fairly traditional Druse family of six children. Four of his siblings are married – all to Druse – but A.K. is in the army, and says he will not limit himself to Druse girls. “My last serious relationship was with a Jewish girl,” he said. “In the end it was she who dumped me because I wasn’t Jewish! I was ok with it, but I think she got slack from her community.”

The article proceeds to explain that the man is responsible for bringing the money (and the house) to the relationship, women are the real keepers of the culture and the faith; add to that the fact that Druse don’t accept converts, and you begin to see why it is so important to the Druse people that Druse men marry Druse women.

I’m not at all advocating the return to more traditional “men-make-money and women-make-home” model. But the fact that the Druse are so self-contained–not accepting converts, and therefore responsible in a more structured way for the propagation of their culture and religion–does give me some food for thought.

More at JDaters Anonymous.