Elizabeth Sloan had one wish as she contemplated the future while in her mid-50s: an emotionally and financially stable partner who shared her commitment to Conservative Judaism.​

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Sloan, a marriage therapist from Glendale, Md., had been married once, for three years. After her divorce in 1995, she realized she was looking for someone who wouldn’t roll his eyes at the idea of going to shul.

She joined dating sites and also considered a matchmaker, but was reluctant to shell out the several thousand dollars most charge. Then, in July 2014, Match.com, one of those online sites, brought Michael Stein into her life.

Tinder For Seniors. Tinder For Seniors is a senior dating site and app created to fill a gap in the dating market. It is not officially affiliated with the dating app Tinder. The Tinder For Seniors team simply takes its inspiration from the swiping scene and has endeavored to make it more senior-friendly. Jun 23, 2020 JDate is a good option for Jewish seniors. It is one of the safest online dating sites and both the app and website are easy to navigate. There is a considerable number of senior members on JDate. This makes it a great opportunity for seniors to connect over their shared culture and heritage. JDate will help you make a lot of valuable connections in the Jewish community. Its powerful matchmaking tools will help you choose the perfect partner who will meet all your standards and preferences. JDate is a trustworthy dating platform, which has been designed to. Over the last 20 years, JDate has provided a relationship solution for Jewish singles as young as 18 and as old as 80. There are no age restrictions to love, and JDate welcomes people who are in their senior years and want to find companionship.

Stein and his late wife, also named Elizabeth, had been married for nearly 30 years and had three kids together. She died of uterine cancer in May 2013, a year shy of Michael’s 60th birthday. Her death left the corporate lawyer from Northern Virginia adrift.

“I missed the companionship, security, friendship, love—just being able to share life with each other,” says Stein. He hadn’t dated for over three decades and didn’t know current protocols.

Starting over in the dating world is never easy. Starting over when you’re old enough to be a grandparent and Medicare is your primary insurance—that can be downright terrifying.

But as dating-site administrators, professional matchmakers, sociologists and couples themselves acknowledge, older adults are more and more willing to try. As life expectancy hits new highs, members of the 50-plus set are looking for a new or second or even third bashert with whom to share those bonus years, increasingly turning to the internet to make it happen.

There are about 1.2 million Jews 60 or older in the country, says Harriet Hartman, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., and co-author of Gender and American Jews: Patterns in Work, Education, and Family in Contemporary Life.

According to the 2013 Pew Research Center Survey of American Jews, some 43 percent of that demographic is either divorced, separated, widowed or never married. Pew also reported, in 2015, that 12 percent of all adults ages 55 to 64 have used an online dating site or mobile dating app—a big leap from the 6 percent reported just two years earlier.

“I’ve seen a massive increase in the number of seniors reaching out to me for help,” says Lori Salkin, 36, a matchmaker and dating coach with SawYouAtSinai, a site that employs actual matchmakers to work with the online profiles of its 40,000 largely Orthodox members. “SawYouAtSinai has seen between 50 to 100 couples in the senior range marry over the past 10 years.”

She attributes the growth in part to the willingness of older adults to embrace online dating as a way of finding companionship.

Indeed, Stein dated about four or five women from Match.com before the site led him to Sloan. After an initial online connection, the two met at a steakhouse halfway between their offices.

“The conversation was very easy and free flowing,” he recalls of that first encounter. The second date took place the next day, and the third that Shabbat, when Sloan invited Stein to tour her synagogue, Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C.

“I wanted to make sure he would be a good fit,” says Sloan, 58. “I did not invite him to services, because my friends would start asking too many questions, but I gave him a tour after Kiddush and we had lunch later in the afternoon.”

Two weeks later, when Stein was gearing up for a hiking and biking outing in Alaska—the first vacation he had planned since his wife had died—he impulsively asked Sloan to come along. She said no, worried it was too early in the relationship.

Instead, she sent along an iPod loaded with a playlist of favorites—jazz standards, classic rock—so he’d think of her on the plane and during his wilderness travels.

“It worked like a charm,” says Sloan.

But she has since gone on other trips with him, including a January 2016 visit to Ireland, where they became engaged after climbing Slieve League, Europe’s highest sea cliff. “We don’t have a wedding date, but we are looking for venues somewhere in the Northeast U.S.,” says Sloan.

Meanwhile, she advises peers to “give a relationship time to evolve, because at our age we have become accustomed to being with a former spouse, or if we’ve been single for a long time, we’ve learned to live a certain way that is comfortable and familiar. Being with someone new requires a lot of flexibility and openness to change.”

Being open to change helped Bonni Rubin-Sugarman navigate the online dating world after she was widowed in her late 50s. She had been part of a couple for a quarter of a century—a terrific marriage, she says, with two wonderful kids—when her husband, Richard Sugarman, died of cancer at age 55.

A former director of special education for the Haddonfield, N.J., school district and currently a special education consultant, Rubin-Sugarman, 66, says she felt upbeat from the outset of her online quest. But still, there were “disastrous dates”: Her daughter once bailed her out with a well-placed phone call 20 minutes into one. And there was the endless evening she suffered through at a sports bar watching a football game—definitely not her thing.

Then a year and a half after she was widowed, she met Gerald Faich through JDate.

“I got a gem,” Faich, 75, says about Rubin-Sugarman, without any prompting. The retired physician had come to JDate after his marriage of 26 years fell apart.

The two navigated their early, tentative dating steps online and then met for coffee in February 2009 at a Bahama Breeze restaurant in southern New Jersey. What was supposed to be a quick date turned into a four-hour dinner.

“We started out talking about what we do, our paths through our careers, our families, where we lived, our spouses, our kids, his grandkids,” recalls Rubin-Sugarman.

“I knew I was in trouble the minute we started talking,” jokes Faich, president of a Philadelphia-
based drug research and safety consulting firm.

Four years later, they were married before their combined six children and five grandchildren on what Rubin-Sugarman calls “the magical day” in 2013 when Hanukkah and Thanksgiving converged. Their brood has since expanded to nine grandchildren.

Finding matches for an older demographic is different than for those in their 20s and 30s, says Salkin of SawYouAtSinai, who has 33 marriages to her credit and works with over 1,000 singles in a range of ages. For example, since many of her older clients have children and grandchildren, most are “not willing to move, so the match must be someone in their neighborhood.”

Among the other differences that Salkin notes: Seniors are seeking companionship, not someone to have children with; sometimes marriage is not even the end goal. Occasionally, she says, they expand their dating pool to non-Jews, since they’ve already raised Jewish children.

And, the Philadelphia-based Salkin adds, “a lot of times, it’s their children who urge them to create an online profile.”

Salkin uses her parents’ longtime marriage as well as her own 13-year marriage as a template when creating a match. As she seeks to pair SawYouAtSinai clients after reading their online profile and communicating with them via phone or email, she looks at religious observance, socioeconomic backgrounds and lifestyles: Does he read The New York Times and visit museums? Is she an outdoorsy type who prefers hiking to reading? All anyone wants is a spark, she says: “What changes over the years is how that spark is defined: caring, warm, considerate, thoughtful—rather than the sexy you were looking for when in your 20s.”

Matchmaker Jessica Fass, 35, who runs Fass Pass to Love out of the Los Angeles area, says that working with an older clientele is about managing expectations.

“Women in their 40s are not looking to date you,” she tells 70-something men whose wish list includes women 20, even 30 years their junior. “Even if you look good for your age.” Fass, whose services for older clients include helping them navigate online communication and texts as well as preparing dating profiles, has a Jewish clientele across a range of ages. Says Fass, “If you’ve never put your picture online before, of course it’s scary.”

“The main advice for widowed clients from decades-long happy marriages is not to talk about their deceased spouse with a date,” says digital dating coach and matchmaker Judith Gottesman, “and not to expect to find the same type of person and relationship again.”

Gottesman, who is in her 40s, has a master’s in social work from Yeshiva University and runs West Coast-based Soul Mates Unlimited. She coaches her Jewish clients by phone and email and helps create online profiles for established dating sites, which she encourages as a way to expand the search for love.

Gottesman notes a well-known but pertinent fact that can make dating among seniors tricky: As the population ages, women start to outnumber men. Indeed, according to the most recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average American life expectancy is 76 years for a man and 81 for a woman. “There are always more women alive in senior years,” says Gottesman. But the discrepancy should not scare off women because, she states, statistics are irrelevant to “whether I have someone’s match.”

And, she reminds those new to the dating scene, “kisses aren’t promises. Just because someone kisses you goodnight at the end of the date” does not mean he or she will call—
or text.

Marc Goldmann, cofounder and CEO of SawYouAtSinai, views his enterprise not merely as a business but as a mitzvah. He echoes his colleagues’ optimism that there are advantages to having a few more summers under your belt in the dating game. His site includes several gray-haired couples pictured on its home page, and Goldmann notes that in recent years, he has seen close to 3 percent growth in clients in the 50 to 59 age bracket.

“Things that might have felt important at age 25 are quite different at 60,” he says. “There’s definitely something to the saying that with maturity comes wisdom.”

Linda Diamond would likely agree. “I think it’s harder for younger people,” says the education consultant from Menlo Park, Calif., who works with public schools to improve math and literacy training. When you’re older, she adds, “you don’t have fantasies; you’re not looking for a prince charming who’s perfect in every way.”

Like Rubin-Sugarman, Diamond lost her first husband, Richard, after a long marriage. Their daughter, Danielle, is married and living in Israel. Diamond was 64 when Richard died and had no desire to live the rest of her life alone. “I wanted a companion, somebody with whom I had things in common and who was financially independent, someone who shared my values and my religious views,” recalls Diamond, who is Modern Orthodox. And it wouldn’t hurt if he shared her passion for Beethoven and her delight in the movies My Cousin Vinny and Groundhog Day.

Diamond, now 68, was close to giving up on JDate. “I was ready to cancel because strange people were popping up, a lot of them weren’t truthful about their circumstances,” she says. But then Donald Light’s profile appeared. He fit all her categories—and he lived just 40 miles down the freeway.

Light, 71, a computer professional with an adult daughter and son, had been divorced for 10 years after a 25-year marriage. Diamond and Light communicated online for a time, then met at a local Starbucks.

The two married on August 23, 2015, just over a year after meeting. “Having those feelings ignite again was wonderful,” says Diamond. “We were shocked that we could feel that romantic, loving relationship at this point in our lives.”

And she has this piece of wisdom for her contemporaries: “Be persistent and don’t give up on the Jewish dating sites.” And, to cover all your bases, “ask friends!”

It’s a Date

Jewish Dating Sites For Seniors

Scouring the internet yields dozens of dating sites, most ranging in price from $10 to $50 a month, though a few offer a limited free membership. A selection of sites includes:

For Jews of all ages looking for a Jewish match: JDate, SawYouAtSinai and Jewcier

For ages 50 and up: OurTime and SilverSingles

General dating sites: Match.com, Elite Singles, Tinder, OKCupid and eHarmony

Fass Pass to Love, run by matchmaker Jessica Fass, charges between $5,000 and $12,000, depending on the length of the contract and the number of amenities, and has an international clientele of Jews of all ages and religious observance.

Soul Mates Unlimited, run by dating coach and matchmaker Judith Gottesman, who specializes in the West Coast Jewish community, costs $3,600 per year with up to two additional years at no charge if no match is made in the first year.

Fredda Sacharow is a freelance writer and former managing editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.

Dating at any age can be pretty daunting. So if you’re over 60, single and want to start dating, you may not know where to turn. Don't worry! We’ve got all you need to get started.

Why date at my age?

People date for different reasons at any age. When you were in your 20s and 30s, you probably began looking for a life partner so you could settle down and start a family. At this stage, you left your parents’ home to establish your independence, explore new relationships, develop your career and find your own place to put down roots.

Fast forward to the present and your situation is totally different—you may be widowed or divorced, or maybe you just never married. But now your quest for companionship is not about having children or starting out on your adult life journey. As such, what you are looking for in a relationship will be based on different factors.

Of the singles aged 60+ who we interviewed, there were two things they were all looking for—a physical relationship and companionship. Many people who already had established families and home lives didn’t want to dig up their roots and move. In other words, they didn't really want to set up house and share domestic duties. Instead, they were far more interested in having someone to be with and enjoy the pleasures of life.

So whatever your reasons, it’s important to be totally honest as to why you wish to start dating. Once you’ve worked this out, it’s equally important to be up front with anyone you go out on a date with, as you can’t just assume that other people are dating for the same reasons as you are.

Meeting someone new in person

There are many ways to meet new people—some very old-fashioned (like using a matchmaker) and others more modern (like speed dating). We explain it all in the paragraphs that follow.

Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match

Matchmakers, or Shidduchim in Hebrew, have a long history in the Jewish tradition. Hedi Fisher, a Holocaust survivor now living in London, was so successful at matchmaking that she wrote a book (Matchmaker, Matchmaker, available on Amazon.co.uk) on the subject.

Suzie Parkus of Meet Your Match is one matchmaking coach who offers a modern take on the traditional Jewish matchmaker. There are also organisations such as the Simantov matchmaking service which are designed for Jewish professionals and tend to attract a slightly younger audience.

There are also a lot of non-Jewish introduction agencies out there, such as the long established service, Drawing Down the Moon.

If you do decide to go down this route, you’ll need to do your homework. These services tend to be rather expensive, so make sure you read the fine print before signing up.

Speed dating for busy singles

Speed dating is a reasonably new way of meeting prospective partners. It is an organised social activity in which those seeking romantic relationships have a series of short conversations with prospective partners.

It is generally designed for busy professionals and tends to focus on those between the ages of 25 and 40. However, if you think this might be for you, why not contact one of the many speed dating companies you can find on the Internet and see if they have anything for over 60s? If not, then go ahead and suggest they run one!

Using your own social network to find love

The little things that make us fall in love or find someone attractive are hard enough for us to articulate, but they're more difficult for anyone else to understand too. Sometimes being set up on a blind date can do the trick, but many people find themselves pondering, “What on earth were my friends thinking?” when on the way home from such a date.

Sometimes it’s easier just using your network of family members and friends to meet new people in a more general way, expanding your network and the possibility of meeting your perfect match.

We spoke to one woman who met her second husband at a friend of a friend’s birthday party. When the two originally got together, friends said they would have never thought they would be a couple if they were the last two people on the planet. Meanwhile, they are now happily married.

Date by exploring interests, meeting like-minded people

When you get older, having a companion who shares your interests can play an even more important role than it does when you were younger. Many of the over 60s daters that we spoke to cited shared interests as one of the most important things they were looking for in a partner. So why not go travelling to places of interest, visit art museums, attend concerts or sign up for Classes, clubs and continuing education courses or volunteer for other activities that match your interests?

Combine travel with romance on singles holidays

If you’re feeling adventurous and love to travel, why not combine your search for the perfect partner with a fabulous holiday?

Most singles holiday websites feature sections for Jewish people and those aged 40+. Organisations such as Ayelet have tours specifically for single Jewish people aged 40+. The Best Single Travel website has a section for single Jewish travellers, as well as those in their 40s, 50s, 60s and over.

Getting out to singles social events

Many synagogues offer events and activities for singles of all ages. The United Synagogue has singles events in synagogues throughout the UK. Check out the Something for Singles section of the United Synagogue website for more information.

There are also community and cultural centres that offer programmes if you're single and want to participate in other activities with like-minded people. Jewish Care’s community centres in Redbridge and Golders Green host regular singles events for over 50s. Get in touch with your local Jewish Care community centre for more information.

If you’re based in London, North West Jewish Singles (NWJS) pretty much do what they say on the tin. For more information about NWJS, have a look at their website.

If you identify as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), there are Jewish LGBT organisations that hold social events, such as the Jewish LGBT+ Group (which also includes those who identify as bisexual and transgender) and Gay Jews in London.

Outside of the Jewish community, there are many different singles events, activities and meet ups for people of all ages and interests. If you think this is for you, we’d recommend doing an Internet search for 'singles events' and then adding other keywords that meet your criteria, such as those relating to your interests or location.

Meeting people through volunteering

If you’re the giving kind, volunteering is a fantastic way to make a difference to your community or a charity that is close to your heart. It’s also a great way to meet like-minded people. To find out more about volunteering, check out the Volunteering and participating in your community section of our website.

Finding love online

Another not so old-fashioned way to meet people is online. Nowadays, many people are going digital to find love. That's why there’s such a wide range of websites and apps available to choose from, but where to begin? A quick Internet search will provide you with lots of options, and if you want to get more specific, read on…

Mainstream online options

First, let’s start with the mainstream websites and apps. That is, those sites that cater to everyone, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs and suchlike. These websites have large databases, so you can narrow your search based on specific criteria such as “Jewish”, “Over 60” or “LGBT”. Mainstream dating websites include industry leaders eHarmony and Match.

If you’re interested in something a bit more immediate or casual, location-based dating apps (like Tinder) allow you to find other singles near you.

Speciality online options

There are websites and apps tailored to all manner of different categories, and we have selected the ones that those we interviewed found most helpful.

• If you want to meet other Jewish singles, Jdate is a good place to start. There are also location-based dating apps for Jewish singles, such as Jswipe.
• If you want to focus your search on others over 60, websites such as Mature Encounters and Just Senior Singles are quite popular.
• If you identify as LGBT, online services such as Gaydar for men and PinkCupid for women may be your preference. There are also websites like one scene that span across the LGBT spectrum.
• If you have political leanings, then you may prefer online dating services where you could find others with the same. The Telegraph dating service or The Guardian’s Soulmates service are designed for people with this interest.
• If the arts are your thing, then the Love Arts dating website may be the place for you.

If none of our suggestions are making your heart sing, then we recommend taking to the Internet and searching “dating” along with a few keywords that express the specific interests or characteristics you’re looking for.

Tips for safe dating

It’s important to keep yourself safe when venturing out in the dating world. As in any other aspect of life, there are going to be people out there who range from total scammers to those who tell a few little white lies to get you interested; there will also be genuine folk who just want to meet that special someone.

How to trust the technology

If you’re using a dating website or app, do your research about the company first. In the same way that you make sure that websites you purchase goods from are bona fide, you should do the same with online dating services. You’ll also need to check out their prices and terms and conditions to make sure they fit within your budget and expectations.

Do your homework

When you meet someone online, the best advice is to proceed slowly and with caution. There are people out there who post fake profiles—complete with falsified information and images—so you need to make sure that anyone you meet online is the real thing.

We recommend you:

Ask questions. Ask plenty of questions about who they are, where they’re from and other general questions, as well as anything you feel is of concern. If your prospective date feels uncomfortable by your asking questions about them in order to keep you safe, then you have to ask yourself why.

Search the Internet. Use the Internet to discover whether or not the person is genuine. You can search with any combination of their name, profile picture and phrases that they commonly use, along with the term “dating scam”. You can also look at their social media profile to see if they’re active on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter and see if this supports what they’re saying on their profile. If the person has multiple Facebook accounts, if their profile image is being used on different social media accounts or if their Facebook account has very few friends, images or information, then they’re probably not who they say they are.

If the information someone provides on their profile sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Be wary of claims that sound unbelievable; people who boast about immense wealth, links to famous people or remarkable achievements are most likely not telling the truth. If a person becomes defensive when you challenge them on such claims, then it’s time to think twice about going out on a date with them.

Safely dating in person

When you decide you want to go out on a date with someone for the first time, the rules for safe dating apply regardless of how you met the person.

Feel comfortable

It’s perfectly natural to feel a little nervous, especially if you haven’t dated in a long time, so it’s good to talk to your friends and close family members about your dating choices. If there are things they don’t feel comfortable with, it may be helpful to reflect on these concerns. If a prospective date tells you not to tell anyone else about them, then it’s safe to say “run for the hills”. This person has something to hide and you probably don’t want to find out what it is. If someone can’t be honest at the outset, then it isn’t a foundation on which to build a happy and healthy relationship.

Keep your money in the bank where it belongs

Date Jewish Women

This may sound obvious, but many scammers are excellent actors and know how to exploit even the most prudent and sensible people, but it’s really important to ensure that you don’t send money to your prospective date. If you do, it’s highly likely that you will never see your money or your date again. In addition to this, do not provide your prospective dates with any financial information, such as details of credit cards or bank accounts.

Jdate For Seniors Only

In the modern dating world, many scammers will build up relationships with people over time online, spinning their sad yarns, gaining the other person’s trust and sympathy, and then fleecing the person when they are most vulnerable. Whatever the other person’s circumstances might appear to be, their finances are not your concern. If you are feeling charitable, donate to a well established charity!

Keep your private information private

Jdate For Seniors Only

Just as you wouldn’t disclose a lot of personal information when you first meet someone new, be careful to not disclose too much to your prospective date, particularly at the beginning of a relationship.

Make it public

On the first date, it’s still important to ensure that you get to know the real person. It is advisable not to have your first few dates in a private place, such as your own home. It’s best to meet in a public place, where there are lots of people around and you are not completely alone with your date.

It’s important to let a friend or family member know when and where you’re going to be, and to arrange to call that friend or family member when you are home safely after the date. Some people like to use location-based apps, such as Find my Friends on the iPhone, so that their friends and family members can know where they are at any point in time.

Do you fancy a date?

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With all of this advice, we hope you now feel prepared to get out there and explore your dating options. If you want to share your experience or ask more questions about the dating scene, we’d love to hear from you! Register and post your thoughts in our forum, or get in touch through our Facebook or Twitter pages.