Passover Clean-Up Goes Online
Passover cleaning ain’t what it used to be. To be sure, many Jews are engaged right now in the traditional sweeping, scrubbing and washing to rid their homes of chametz. But it seems that young singles are trying to unload themselves of unwanted leavening—that stuff that spiritually weighs you down—in an entirely different way. They’re de-friending people on Facebook and deleting contacts in their cell phones.
According to a new poll of 1,120 Jewish singles conducted by the Jewish dating site Jewcier, 68% of women and 65% of men said that cleaning out their Facebook accounts and phone contact lists was the most important kind of Passover cleaning there is. “What we found is that, when it comes to Passover priorities, Jewish singles have traded the traditional priorities with modern, non-traditional ones,” said Shira Kallus, Relationship Advisor for Jewcier. “Specifically, Jewish singles are more interested in ridding their Facebook from unwanted friends, and ex boyfriend’s or girlfriends, rather than spending their time cleaning their homes from dirt and their kitchens from chametz.”
When asked which was more important to clean out—your Facebook friends or your cell phone contacts, 85% of the women respondents said it was Facebook, but 75% of the men said the their cell phone would take priority. Not surprisingly, both sexes said the most important Facebook friends to delete are ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends. But quite a few men also said they would be de-friending co-workers they were not really friends with, and many women said they wouldn’t be waisting time anymore by having people who had set them to limited profile access among their “friends.”
Interestingly, only 15% of the men would delete from their phones the numbers of their exes—something 58% of the women would do. Also, 25% of men said they would erase the number of anyone now married, but only 6% of the women would do so. However, large numbers of both sexes (half of the men and a third of the women) responded that they would keep all numbers in their phones…for screening calls and avoiding talking to anyone they don’t want to talk to.
This may be a brave new digital world we live in, but it would seem that young people still view Passover as the holiday of freedom—freedom to avoid being in touch with people you don’t like, that is.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
