What Are the Best Dating Apps for Jewish Singles?

For a man who wants to meet Jewish women, the two apps to look at first are JDate and Lox Club. JDate is built for Jewish singles, and Lox Club is a vetted, application-only club with a culturally Jewish feel. Hinge and Tinder are bigger and can work if you use their religion settings. No single app is best for every man, so choose by how much you want to narrow your matches before you swipe or send a message.

Before you pick an app, answer one question honestly. Is a Jewish partner a requirement, or a strong preference?

If it is a requirement, a Jewish-community app saves you evenings with women who could never share that part of your life. If it is a preference, a hard filter on a big app costs you women you would have liked, and the saving is small.

a dating coach has a warning about religious labels on a page. If the label is not a true dealbreaker for you, he calls it the wrong thing to polarize on. A woman who is mildly observant may react to one flat word before she has read anything else. The same caution applies to a filter. Make it strict only where you would really end things.

JDate presents itself as a service for Jewish singles. A free Basic membership lets you build a page, get recommended matches and message the women who match with you. Premium adds extras such as unlimited likes, a view of who liked you, more match filters and read receipts.

It suits a man for whom a shared background is the starting point. The pool is smaller than a general app's, so the women you see have already chosen the same starting point as you. Give the free version two weeks before you pay anything. Our longer piece on whether JDate is worth it covers the paid tier in detail.

Lox Club describes itself as a curated, culturally Jewish community. You apply, a membership committee reviews each application, and members are vetted and verified. A man does not have to be Jewish to join, which matters if you are open to women of any background who like the setting.

Two things to know. Swiping and chatting need a paid plan, and the plans start at three months, so your smallest commitment is a season. And it operates in selected places, so check that yours is covered before you spend time on the application. A man with clear, recent photos and an honest page gets the most from a smaller room.

The big apps are not designed for any one community, but they let you aim.

On Hinge, every member can filter by religion, and a woman can show her religion as one of her personal details. That gives you something to read before you decide, and something specific to start a conversation. Tinder points to its filters and preferences, not its Search feature, for narrowing by religion, and Search will refuse a religion as a keyword.

The trade is size. You see far more women on a big app, and a smaller share are the ones you want. If the pool in your city is thin on a Jewish-community app, a big app with a sensible filter can fill the gap.

Whichever app you use, put what you want in one plain line on your page. Something like what you do on a Friday night or which holidays you actually keep tells her more than a label does.

Do not perform it. A man who uses religious words he looked up that morning reads as trying too hard. A woman who shares your background will spot that faster than anyone. Ask about her family, her traditions and her favorite places the way you would ask about anything a woman you liked cared about.

A woman who keeps a strict practice and a woman who only celebrates the holidays can both be on the same app, and they want different things from a partner. If your own practice is relaxed, say so in a plain sentence. If it is central to your life, say that instead. Either way, a clear line saves both of you a first date that was never going to work.

a dating coach's habit is to try more than one app, since a man can flop on one and do well on the next. Choose two. Load the same photos and the same written lines into both, and give them a fortnight.

Write down how many women you liked, how many matched, how many answered and how many agreed to meet. The app with more dates for the same effort stays. If both come up empty, look at your lead photo and your first message before you blame the app.