I know that in some parts of the Jewish community, participating in Valentine’s Day is frowned upon, because the Valentine involved was a Christian saint. That made a recent article by Rabbi Everett Gendler Don’t Dismiss the Jewish Origins of Cupid, all the more interesting. For one thing, the Catholic Church declared in 1969 that Valentine’s Day is not a saint’s day. For another, there is a lot of archeological evidence of Cupid’s Jewish character, including appearing above the door of a synagogue. And for another, there is a lot about love in the Hebrew Bible — check out the article to learn more.
Match.com recently released a survey about, well, love. The take-away lesson, according to Time Magazine, is that men are just as interested in commitment as women. Buried in the Time article was a factoid of more interest to IFF: 83% of men and 62% of women are flexible on their date’s religious beliefs. If you go over to the Match.com site itself, you find that only 17% of men and 28% of women must have, or say it is very important to find someone, of the same religion. Of course these are aggregate figures and don’t tell you about particular groups – but it looks like a safe bet this Valentine’s Day that interfaith couples are likely to keep on falling in love.
I hope yours is or was a happy one!
This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.
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