In a community that so strongly values marriage, a large population is often overlooked – Orthodox Jews who are ready to settle down but are unable to find their spouse. It’s the community’s job to help them.

The Orthodox Union’s Center for Communal Research (OU-CCR) department has released a new report, “The Challenges of Singlehood among American Orthodox Jews Part II.” This study focuses on what single Orthodox men and women want in a spouse, the processes and systems used to find dates, and what individuals and community members can do to help singles find their match.

Some top findings from the study suggest:

Although participants spoke about being encouraged to move to New York for dating purposes, there are pros and cons of both dating in and out of the Greater New York area. Orthodox single men and women in Greater New York are not more confident that they will find a spouse than those not living there, nor are they more likely to have been involved with someone they would be willing to marry.

Many do not feel they can find a partner on their own. Qualitatively, however, some men and women are critical of their interactions with matchmakers and say the experience of working with a matchmaker can be negative, and at times, hurtful.

The US trend towards marrying later in life or choosing to remain single does not appear to be affecting the Orthodox community, in that most single Orthodox men and women want to get married and build a family. Close to nine out of ten respondents believe their lives will be fuller and happier if they are married. They are making every effort to find their spouse.

This research project took a mixed methods approach, collecting and analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data – utilizing surveys of Orthodox single Jews, as well as interviews with Orthodox single Jews, matchmakers, rabbis, rebbetzins, and community leaders. Participants self-identified as Modern or Centrist Orthodox (58%), Hasidic or Chabad (6%), Modern Yeshivish (6%), Modern Orthodox Machmir (4%), Liberal Modern Orthodox, Open Orthodox, or Conservadox (3%), or “some other type of Orthodox” (8%).

The report is a follow-up to Part I of the study, which was released in September 2023 and focused on educating the community about what we can do to remedy negative aspects of the single experience, such as reported feelings of blame and judgment. This report focuses on the other challenge of singlehood – actually finding a spouse.

You can see the full study below.