Published: 4 July 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Ahead of an upcoming ABC premiere, RUBY KRANER-TUCCI speaks with filmmaker JOSH BEN-MOSHE about the complexities of Jewish dating and whether his documentary can resonate with a wider Australian audience.
Young Australian Jews looking for romance are facing a dilemma: hold out for a Jewish partner within a limited dating pool, or search outside the community and faith to find true love.
This common experience is the focus of Jewish Singles in the Snow, a new TV documentary following hopeful Jewish singles on a four-day ski retreat in the Victorian alps. It’s the brainchild of writer and director Josh Ben-Moshe, a young Australian Jew himself, who understands first-hand the complexities of modern dating.
“Jewish dating is a central talking point within the Australian Jewish community,” explained Ben-Moshe, an emerging documentary filmmaker who works for an international content production company.
“Concerns over rising intermarriage rates that threaten population growth; struggles to find a match within the 100,000-person community that makes you feel like you know everybody, or just the local Bubbeh trying to set you up with their very handsome grandson. The question of whether or not to marry Jewish was a personal one that I grappled with. Is Judaism worth more to me than romantic love? At what point would I venture beyond the small Jewish dating pool into the ocean? What does Judaism mean to me? These are the questions that inspired Jewish Singles in the Snow.”
While the ski retreat is Orthodox-run, created with Jewish continuity in mind, the attendees reflect the diversity of Australia’s modern Jewish community. This includes 29-year-old Jarod Rhine-Davis, a gay Jewish man looking for "the one" within what he calls a “dating puddle”.
“There are so few choices as a gay Jewish man,” Rhine-Davis told The Jewish Independent. “[I’m] looking for a subset within a subset, and that’s before you talk about interests, personalities, ages and geographic locations.”
