Matzav Inbox: 10,000 Girls, 2,000 Boys — Do We Really Care?

— yet BMG has only about 2,000 boys available. Why is BMG the only place that has boys ? Maybe that’s the answer to your hysteria.

The pain is real. Anyone with a daughter coming of age in indeed concerned.

Having said that although I’m not advocating for it, when R Chaim was alive, in his last years, they asked him what to do about this crisis and he reacted by saying “boys need to start shidduchim sooner” this way, there are more boys available. At the same time though, many naysayers said its not a good idea.

The problem lies your focusing on 2 thousand boys only. There’s 8 thousand others still available.

May Hashem send everyone their zivug bkarov.

The numbers game makes it sound scarier than it is.

All the girls who just came back are 18-19 years old and majority of them probably won’t start dating for another year.

I don’t think it is fair to say that girls have to wait. Most are waiting anyway by default, and some girls really want to and need to get married right away.

The main thing is that boys should start dating earlier, to introduce more boys into the dating pool. Why are they hanging around until they turn 23? We are infantilizing them by keeping them teenagers for so long.

Stop giving space to this broken record already please.

You’re so “concerned” about your older non picky single daughter AND all the non picky singles in Klal Yisroel yet you didn’t leave your daughters name so we can be mispalel for her. How can such a “concerned” parent not give out her name? It leads me to believe that this is just another sigh/yawn AI generated letter, meant to illicit some responses and tumult.

“yet BMG has only about 2,000 boys available”

Oy vey, what a tragedy. They will need to find a guy from somewhere else. Ov vey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

שומו שמים.

BMG ain’t everything, wake up and start thinking logically for a change.

The American yeshivas beis medresh currently goes until 4th year Pesach, then Israel, then a “freeze.” The answer is simple, do I even need to mention it…. I will for those who refuse to do the math. Cut out 4th year beis medresh completely, or go until 3rd year sukkus, and do away with the Lakewood “freezer.” Problem resolved! Bingo!
How can we stand on Yom Kipper and fast like tzaddikim and say the words “lifna Heshem Tetahru” but still love, and wish, and remain committed to entering our sons to the shidduch market at 23 and a half??

First of all גמר חתימה טובה. We should be זוכה to the גאולה שלמה בקרוב.
I think that if when boys start shidduchim they should be encouraged to go out with girls their age or older (especially if they have an older sister and know what girls are going through) it will enable more girls to be married. At the same time if boys are starting younger it can prevent this imbalance in the future.

With your equation is seems it is you who doesn’t care. Are you seriously writing off the thousands of Bochurim who go to Yeshivos besides BMG? If it’s just BMG or Bust, then I’m sorry but nobody can help you; you’re the product of a self-fabricated shidduch crises.

Hatzlacha Rabbah.

THIS ISSUE IS FROM YESHIVA SYSTEM. THE BOYS ONLY WANT GIRLS WITH $.
GIRLS SHOULD MAKE SURE THEY EXCERSICE AND LOOK IN GOOD SHAPE. IT WILL DEFINTIELY MAKE THEM MORE ATTRACTIVE. ALSO THEY SHOULD TRY TO GET A GOOD COLLEGE DEGREE WHERE THEY COULD WORK LIMITED HOURS AND MAKE A GOOD SALARY/HOURLY RATE.
I AM NOT AGAINST YESHIVOS BUT WHY CANT THERE ALSO BE BNEI TORAH WORKING BOYS WHO ARE KOVEA ISIM LETORAH? WHY ISN’T THERE A SYSTEM TO SEPERATE THE SERIOUS LEARNERS FROM THE BOYS WHO ARE JUST LOOKING FOR A SHIDDUCH WITH $?
THIS IS MY TAKE ON THE SHIDDUCH CRISIS.

I wish a gut Yohr even to those who don’t genuinely feel the pain of another person
and now find themselves in pain because they have not received a gut Yohr wishes from the OP

Pretty small minded …”there are 2000 boys in BMG”….TO the author…there are more places out there besides BMG.

If only there were more boys in other places other than BMG…

The Rabbonim after analyzing the data have concluded that there is no imbalance of boys and girls. They have therefore let go of their initiative hence there has been no news in half a year. It was a mistaken calculaition.

At this very moment, there are 10,000 girls hoping to get married — yet BMG has only about 2,000 boys available. Just this summer alone, another 3,000 young women returned from Eretz Yisroel. This imbalance is devastating.

Where is this 10,000 girls number coming from? Where is the 3,000 young women who returned from Eretz Yisroel number coming from? Are all those girls looking to marry a BMG Bochur ? Are there no single boys who don’t fit the description of BMG Bochur that they can consider?

There certainly is a major and painful shidduch crisis but if the initial assumption is that all the girls looking will marry boys learning in BMG unless they get older and desperate that seems to be a cause of the problem that also needs to be addressed.

Here is a workable plan
Girls can mary boys older then them
Boys can start getting married at 19 like is the practice in every other frum community out side the usa
And also the practice by chasidim inside the us
The bottom line is making girls. Wait is only asking for more problems. And nobody’s looking for real solutions

This latest outrageous idea of making girls wait another year before dating after coming out of Israeli seminary will make it worse. I was going to send my daughter to seminary and after hearing this plan I canceled and put her into shidduchim search. The reason you have so many fathers suffering and mothers is because they are under serious financial stress of paying thirty thousand for each daughter’s seminary. It also causes fathers to die young. This must stop. Going to seminary does not mean your daughter will marry faster. I know plenty of girls now older who went to seminary and it did not help. Girls should learn cooking,baking,sewing and running a house. No need to know every Ramban. Girls should start dating at 17 and marry at 18. That should be the community plan not make girls get older so that ages can fix up between boys and girls. I wonder how many of the rabbis who are broadcasting girls to not date yet would look the other way if their daughter or granddaughter found her bashert at 18 or 19. The Torah advocates girls getting married young. Chassidim are growing very fast because they listen to the Torah. The others make marriage difficult.

OMG, BMG is the only institution supply marriageable age bochurim, for the entire world. Suspending my disbelief would require the entire inventory of Highland Scotch known to mankind.

I don’t see any mention of Hashem in this post.
Pray and keep praying. Hashem is THE answer.

I agree there is clearly a problem. But does every girl need to get a boy in BMG?

Every year the number of boys and girls being born is basically the same. It’s true that boys often date girls 1-10 years younger, while girls usually date boys 1-10 years older, and since our community is growing, this gives boys more options. But in the end, there is still a boy for every girl. Every girl will go out dozens of times before she becomes considered an “older single.”

So instead of blaming the numbers, start teaching your children to focus on what really matters and not to say “no” over narishkeits.

Where are you getting the 10,000 number from??

Your hyperbole is causing more harm than good.
You are either lying to yourself or trying to cleverly manipulate the data…
You aren’t that clever.

You should be ashamed of yourself!

Even NASI does not use such vigorous scare tactics as you are trying to.

Think of the impact your letter may have on so many single girls. They are now going to think there is a 5 to 1 race to get married.
Anyone who has even the slightest self esteem issues will despair.

The only boys they can marry are in BMG???

What is your plan?

Why don’t all boys get married younger much like the chasidim

With all the feeling for the singles that are seeking their bashert, I am bothered by this post, just as I was to many others. There are crises in the frum community. Each and every single that is frustrated in their lack of success is a crisis. But making that into a discussion about a communal problem might not be justified.

Here’s the problem. Numbers. In order to make this into a communal issue, we need: numbers that are real, not just an estimate, and an indication that those being grouped together in a single category belong together. Let’s say I lack transportation to get from Lakewood to Brooklyn, and someone in Baltimore lacks transportation to get to Cincinnatti, are we grouped together? We’re both in trouble, stuck. But these are two distinct problems. There is no resolution that works for the communal problem because it doesn’t exist.

The numbers here look alarming – a discrepancy of thousands. But this is not even apples and oranges. Are all boys coming from BMG? Can we know that there isn’t a comparable number of boys? Should we consider infanticide? Misusing numbers and claiming to have data is misleading and frankly dishonest. That will never contribute to resolution.

we must defer to Daas Torah 100% and whatever they say we must follow, only a kofer would question Daas Torah.

Are there r.e.a.l.l.y. three to five times as many boys born than girls? Doesn’t make sense. Do only Lakewood boys get married? No (just mainly). The difference lies more in the type of young people we are raising. We’ve trained our daughters to value a learning boy above all else but the reason they’re so valuable is that they’re rare! It’s much harder to be that totally committed learning boy than it is to strive to marry one. Nebech, some girls will have to “settle” for an ehrliche part time learner or “just” kovei’a ittim. It’s not “settling”! Except for Dor HaMidbar, most men did n.o.t. learn all day and night, yet they still raised the most wonderful families.

With exaggerated numbers it’s hard to take this seriously.

The Litvishe approach to shidduchim is very goyish. There are even “dating (!?!?) coaches” advertising on this very website.

ויתערבו בגוים וילמדו מעשיהם

While the message is true, the facts are misleading and inaccurate, and perhaps belie a wrong-headed attitude of the letter writer: Not every eligible boy is in BMG. Yes, the bulk are, but there are many who are in another yeshiva (gasp!), learning a trade/going to school (double gasp!) working (chalila vichas!). So the gap is probably not as large as you say (and, once we’re at it, where did those numbers come from in the first place??).
I am not weighing in on this shaala of starting shidduchim a year earlier, as it is complex, but I know of a prominent, chashuve Rosh Yeshiva who did not sign onto the initiative because he felt that it is not the achrayus of bachurim to solve the shidduch crisis by sacrificing the most important years of their growth. It is not black and white.
Yes, this crisis – and it is a full-blown crisis, not a manufactured clickbait one, like so many others – is enormously painful and destructive to Klal Yisroel.
But guess what – Hashem runs the world, and we can only make our hishtadlus. And everyone should be asking their rebbi/rov what their achrayus of hishtadlus is.
(And yes, I have a daughter in shidduchim for two years. Not one date.)

Do you have real, verifiable data?

Typical that the little kinderlach that run Matzav would censor my comment. It didn’t fit their peabrain narrative, so out goes the comment. Very immature.

OK after reading all your comments and seeing that most of you dont have daughters on the market so you can plopel with out feeling the pain.
maybe open your eyes to your neighbors and ask them how they feel about there daughters no getting married?
then we will talk
also to those who are harping about there are more boys out of BMG
yes maybe another 500 but not 10000!
wake up
please email me lakewoodshidduchmovement@gmail.com
for a newly released booklet explaining the problem and solving the crisis.

All Litvish/Yeshivish must convert and become Chasidim immediately, and then all their problems will end miraculously. They must shave their heads (except for peiyes), women too, dress only in black and white, go on all government programs.

The only problem we need to solve is what type of shtreimel/bekishe they will wear. And who will pay for all the shtreimels.

Hashem’s plan is perfect, and His math is exact. Every person was created with their match.

What we face today is not a “shidduch crisis” — it’s a kavod habriyos crisis. Too often, people are reduced to technical checklists instead of being treated with dignity, respect, and genuine understanding.

If we could see the person instead of the paper, and stop turning shidduchim into a marketplace, much of the pain would vanish. Boys wouldn’t live under the illusion of “shopping in a candy store,” and girls wouldn’t be tossed around or set up in ways that are careless and hurtful.

And most importantly, the fear-mongerers would be silenced. Because the only reason their voices carry is that the marketplace approach breeds panic — pushing people to run in fear, to line up for boys, and to accept an imbalance that has no basis in reality or in mentchlichkeit.

There is no shidduch crisis. The ultimate Shadchan is perfect. What we have is a middos and kavod habriyos crisis — and the solution begins with how we choose to treat each other.

According to these numbers there should also be close to 8000 non BMG boys in non marriageable crisis as they are seemingly unworthy of a shidduch not being in BMG. We have an expectations crisis. Not a numbers crisis.

RE: we must defer to Daas Torah 100% and whatever they say we must follow, only a kofer would question Daas Torah.
dass torah has spoken the girls must wait

Look for YU guys. Many of them are smart, frum, learned

The problem is the most Lakewood Shadchanim focus only on BMG boys. Yes some go to other Yeshivos like Ner Yisroel in Baltimore but that’s a minority. What happens is, is that as the girls get older, they start reaching out to other Shadchanim in other cities hence broadening their horizons, and perhaps lowering their “only in Kollel” standards and end up finding a nice guy to settle down with. At that point, they have saved enough perhaps for a down payment on a home and are more financially stable. I’m not saying this is ideal, but many times this happens. Yes they start having children later, but many of these girls come from homes where the parents cannot support for 5 years. Additionally, every member of Klal Yisroel needs to become part of the Shadchanim network. That includes Rabbanim for their Bnei Kehilla, teachers in high school and Rabbeim in Yeshivos. There is no excuse for someone who deals with thousands of young men and women not to be actively involved in helping to set them up. That being said, parents as well have to take a front seat and not “wait for the phone call”. You see a nice Bochur home from Bein Hazmanim sitting in Shul learning after davening? Go over to him and find out who he is. Many shidduchim have happened this way. Get to know your neighbors. Maybe there is someone right on your block shayach for your daughter, niece or even babysitter. Many grandparents also take a role in helping network to find shidduchim for their grandchildren connecting to friends and acquaintances. When you go to a Chassunah, convention, even on a flight to Eretz Yisroel (I heard a Shidduch being made with two seat mates’ children) network with people there. Let people know you have a daughter/son in shidduchim. This is how it was done in the shtetl. Not everyone relied on Yenta the matchmaker. The Chazon Ish suggested Rebbetzin Kanievsky to Rav Chaim ZT”L the Gadol Hador! Also, help your children’s friends find shidduchim. Rav Pesach Krohn tells a story where his daughter was in shidduchim for a bit. He took upon himself to help a girl who had no one to help her find a Shidduch. As he was doing some research for her, he came across a Bochur who turned out to be a perfect match for his own daughter. כל המתפלל בעד חבירו נענה תחילה. Don’t just focus on yourself. Broaden your network, focus on others, help orphans get married and may Hashem bring you Hatzlacha.

There were two days a year girls would go out to the fields to find shidduchim. Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur. So as we are davening in Shul focusing on our Tefilos, let’s lift up our eyes and look around and think of shidduchim for others.

To all the commentors
Not one comment with a little sympathy for the girls going through gehinom
Just snide remarks.
What is going on, are we yidden?
Do we care at all about others?
Erev Yom Kippur
Please a little rachmnus at least

These numbers 10K girls to 2K boys have long been proven false.

The Rabbonim with R Moshe Hilel Hirsch at the helm , have custom tailored a solution where the girls and the boys would partner together to fixed the supposed crisis.

The girls said no !

The so called victims of the crisis have essendeclared that they have no crisis.

I commend the letter-writer for acknowledging this problem as a “community crises” that only affects a handful of communities and only in America, and not even ALL of America.

Tellingly, Chassidim and Sephardim in America do not seem affected by a communal shidduch crisis, nor do frum Jews living in other Torah communities (outside of where all these shidduch-crisis letter-writers seem to live).

Maybe you could look at the chassidish, Sephardi, Israeli, European, and “outta-town” communities to see what they’re doing “right” and what you could adopt for yourselves.

Wishing every unmarried person to find their true zivug bakarov, b’ezras Hashem.

It’s Motzei Yom Kippur. Everyone knows there are many older single girls who are seeking desperately for a learning boy. But then there are equally amount of older girls seeking boys who are earner learners. I recall years ago when one of my daughters who was 19 at the time went to one of the leading shadchonim in lakewood. We got to his house early and I noticed as I was parked on his block continuous cars with girls and their fathers circulating the block. Every girl had a 15 minute time slot to meet this Shadchen. It was sad to see all these father daughter card circulating all waiting for their 15 minute interview. I never got a call back from this Shadchen even though I offered full support for life to a learning boy. But guess what. A sister of the boy my daughter married introduced her brother. This is 15 years later with my daughter having ten kids and her husband is still in kollel and I am happy to support them. Shidduchim are made in heaven.