What Does Culturally Jewish Mean on JDate?

Culturally Jewish is the far end of JDate's identification scale from Orthodox. Read it as a man who feels Jewish through family, food, holidays and history more than through religious practice. JDate does not define the label in writing, so what follows is how the site uses it and how a man should choose.

JDate lets members say how they identify, and the site says there are twelve options in all. The pages that describe it name only the two ends. Orthodox is at one end and Culturally Jewish is at the other, with the rest of the options between them.

JDate's pages say members range from deeply observant to culturally connected to somewhere in between. They also say all expressions of Judaism are welcome, including lighting candles on Fridays, going on Birthright, or wanting to raise future kids with a sense of identity.

That second list is useful. None of those things requires being observant, and all of them count as Jewish life on the site.

None of the JDate pages that describe the scale spell out what each label means. They treat the words as ones everyone understands.

That is not unreasonable. Jewish identity does not have one agreed meaning even among Jewish people. Pew Research Center's survey of Jewish Americans found that U.S. Jews do not share a single answer to whether being Jewish is mainly religion, ancestry, culture or a mix, and only about one in ten say it is only a matter of religion.

Pew also counts a group it calls Jews of no religion. These are people who say they are atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. They consider themselves Jewish aside from religion, and they have at least one Jewish parent or were raised Jewish. Many of them still join in cultural things. Examples are cooking traditional Jewish foods, visiting Jewish historical sites and listening to Jewish or Israeli music.

That is a fair picture of what the label is reaching for.

JDate says your matches are based on the preferences and filters you set, and that it offers dozens of criteria beyond generic identifiers. A member can choose someone who identifies in a similar way to her, anywhere from Orthodox to Culturally Jewish. She can also filter on things like kosher practices. All preferences can be changed at any time.

For you, that means the label is a gate. A woman who sets her preference to Orthodox will not see a man who selects Culturally Jewish, however good his page is. A woman who picks Culturally Jewish for herself and for her matches will see him.

The same logic runs the other way. If you leave the label vague or pick one that is off, you reach the wrong women and lose the ones who would have liked you.

Pick the label that describes how you live now, not how you were raised and not how you want to look.

Ask three plain questions. Do you keep a religious practice every week? Do you go to services outside the holidays? Do you keep kosher at home? If the answers are no, Culturally Jewish is the honest choice.

JDate itself warns about the gap. It contrasts a stringent Jewish household with a culturally liberal one. It says that if you only identify culturally, you might not live up to the expectations of, say, a conservative Orthodox family. So a man who claims a more observant label to match a woman he likes is setting up a conversation he cannot finish.

The word you choose is a promise about what a Sunday with you looks like. A woman who picks a more observant label is thinking about Friday dinners, holidays and what a household looks like. The date will test whether your label was true.

a dating coach's rule for any online page is that it attracts whatever it announces. A page that says what you are draws women who want that, and it spares both of you weeks of mixed signals. A label is the shortest version of that announcement.

So match the label, and then say the real thing in your own words. "I light candles on Friday with my family twice a year and cook my grandmother's brisket" tells her more than any option on a list. "I'm Jewish by background and not religious" does the same job in one short sentence.

Some men are unsure. They grew up with a Jewish parent and no religious practice, or they have started practicing as an adult. The label is not a verdict on your family.

Choose the one nearest to how you live today. Because JDate says you can change any preference at any time, you can adjust it later if your life changes. Do not choose the label to stretch your reach. A wider pool of women who will find you wrong on the first date is worse than a smaller pool of women who fit.

If you are not Jewish at all, do not pick a label to get in. Say what you are and what you are open to, and let the women who share that preference find you.