(idea submitted by Benji)
Traditionally, Jewish Young Adults outside of Israel have found themselves alone and somewhat destitute in the days surrounding the prominent Non-Jewish holiday known as Christmas. While their Non-JYA friends were surrounded by family dinners and requisite gift giving, the JYA would console him/herself over a meager meal of General Tso’s Chicken and whatever subpar film was being broadcast on HBO. But over the last decade a new phenomenon has emerged which has liberated the JYA from their Christmas-time solitude, known as the Matzah Ball.
The Matzah Ball is an annual event, dubbed “The Nation’s Biggest Jewish Singles Event”, thrown on Christmas Eve, the 24th of December, in over 20 cities across the United States, from San Diego to Boston. The Ball attempts to bring together urban JYAs for one night to compensate their lack of yuletide merriment with expensive mixed drinks, forced social interaction, awkward flirtation, and the promise of possible conjugal experiences.
While the Ball is theoretically promising, JYAs will swear left, right, up, and down that they have no intention of attending the event, as they deem it either too “lame” or too “desperate”. Hypocritically, these same JYAs who shun the existence of the Ball on principal are the same ones who compromise the overwhelming bulk of the patrons. They can frequently be heard making comments like “I can’t believe I agreed to come to this”, “Remind me not to do this next year”, or any derivation thereof. One JYA, “Tina”, asserted four hours before the event that “There is no way in hell that I’m going to that crap”, but later in the evening when she was spotted at the event in a vermillion Banana Republic sleeveless halter dress came up with the ready excuse that “Jackie made me come”.
The overwhelming excuses from Ball attendees fall in to two main categories; peer pressure or lack of acceptable social alternatives on Christmas Eve. While both of these excuses seem legitimate, they hide the fact that JYAs actually do harbor some hope that the Ball will lead to new social encounters that could flourish into formal “relationships”. Therefore, any Non-JYA who is thinking about inviting a JYA to a family visit for fear that the JYA will be alone on Christmas can rest easy knowing that even though the JYA will claim to have no plans that night, they have already chosen a proper outfit at least a month beforehand.
(every one of the these JYAs claimed they would not be here 3 hours before)
“expensive mixed drinks, forced social interaction, awkward flirtation, and the promise of possible conjugal experiences.”
(See: My Life, Ages 20-25)
Let My People Go is NOT the Matzo Ball. The concept was invented by the folks behind http://www.matzoball.org who have been running great Matzo Ball parties for like 20 years in NY, Miami, Boca, DC, Philly and Boston. The other suckas are mere imitators.
The photo you are showing above is from The Ball sponsored by LetMyPeopleGo.com in NYC. It’s been the biggest Jewish Singles event in the country 14 years in a row and much bigger than the competing event sponsored by matzoball.org each of those 14 years. In the last two years, over 8,500 people have attended the event in NYC alone.