JDate.com     CompareDating Site Review/jdate-com/

A Clear Focus on the Jewish Community

Founded in 1997, JDate is now the most popular website for Jewish singles, with over 600,000 members in their database, and 10 to 20,000 users online at any hour of the day.

You do not have to be Jewish or practicing Judaism to join, and there are some non-Jews on the site. However, the site clearly targets Jewish singles, practicing or not.

For example, during the registration, you will be asked to specify your ethnicity (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, or other).

Everyone Is Welcome, Practicing Or Not

Again, because Jdate is not only for the religiously observant, there is always a non-practicing answer to each question; as well as practicing answers of various degrees. You can for example answer than you do not keep kosher, or that you do it at all times. You can answer than you never go to synagogue, or that you go at every Shabbat. The idea is to map out your values and to match you with someone whose lifestyle and outlook closely match yours.

Completing the rest of the profile is quick and painless, and more in line with other dating sites: you’ll write about your physical features and relationship preferences, and explain a bit more about yourself. You can also add a photo but that is optional, which we as reviewers can only regret (however, we later found out that most profiles on the site do have at least a picture).

Completing the whole profile will take about 15 minutes, by our estimate. Afterwards, you can head straight to search and take a look at your matches.

Searching for matches is straight-forward as on most dating sites; you can re-order results by join date, most active or most popular, or based on location. You can of course search for people based on the categories described above, from very religious to non-religious, practicing or not.

Jdate’s “Color Code” Test

JDate features its own unique test, the “Color Code” test. This analyzes your personality through your answers and the resulting analysis is quite informative; the test results can be displayed on your profile and is used for better matching.

We found the site easy to navigate. Although the many icons can get a bit confusing, light bulb icons are there for you to click if you need help. JDate’s support can also be reached via email or even via a toll-free number, which is a nice touch.

Conclusion

We found Jdate’s membership quality to be very solid on average, featuring well-educated, urban singles of all ages. The male-to-female ratio is also excellent, almost 50-50. You’ll probably find a bit less members if you live in a rural community rather than a big urban center, but that is to be expected on such a niche website.

After reviewing other options for the Jewish audience in 2012, we found Jdate to be the most interesting site out there at this point. It has our recommendation.