Of the numerous dating sites catering to young Jewish singles, “Saw You at Sinai” is one of the biggest, a reference to the concept in Judaism that all the Jews in history were present at the Biblical revelation at Mount Sinai and met their future partners there.
Now, a site has been launched catering to LGBT Jews, with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the larger, better known matchmaker.
“Saw You at Stonewall” has been set up by Joanna Halpern, a Jewish Lesbian student at Canada’s McGill University. “Stonewall” is a reference to the Stonewall in Greenwich Village, New York, an iconic venue for the LGBT community. The inn was the site of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, seen as the beginning of the gay liberation movement.
“There’s tons of dating sites but there’s nothing specific to being Jewish and queer,” she told the New York Jewish News.
“That’s what’s beautiful about this website. Unlike other dating apps, it has all the perfect questions for being Jewish and all the specific questions for being queer that other websites would be lacking.”
The site, which is still in its testing phase, has an algorithm which splits up applicants by age, location, and gender, as well as requiring users to identify, on a sliding scale, their attraction to men and women. However, the actual matches are then suggested by humans, rather than a computer.