‘I’m not interested in someone passive about Gaza’: how views on the war have changed dating in America

Earlier this year, Anna, a Jewish woman in her mid-30s, put a single watermelon emoji in a prompt on her Hinge profile – a symbolic indicator of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Not long after, a man she assumed was also Jewish matched with her and asked what the watermelon meant. “When I responded, he immediately unmatched me,” she said. The only thing she could think to do was laugh.

The war in Gaza, which is stretching into its second year and has killed more than 43,000 people, has influenced every aspect of American life – from college campuses to workplaces, family dinners to the conversation at synagogues and mosques. In the US, where the conflict pulls on deep-rooted allegiances and senses of identity, diverging views have put an undeniable strain on intimate relationships – including even the most nascent of romantic connections.

Single people in the US who spoke to the Guardian, both Jewish and Muslim, said the events of the last year had deepened their connections to their religious and ethnic identities, bringing them closer to their communities. But it also left them more polarized and less likely to forge relationships with – or even have conversations with – people with opposing views on Gaza. Even those dating within their own religion said they struggled at times to find people whose views on, or passion about, the war and its repercussions matched theirs. “Everything about dating is hard,” Anna said. “[But] differences that maybe a year ago may have been difficult to navigate … feel much bigger now.”

Ari, a graduate student in his late 20s, is a Jewish man who probably would have swiped left on someone like Anna. Though the admission troubles him, he said the events of the last year had made him more intent on dating someone who shares not only his religion, but also his views on Israel: critical of the rightwing government, but still “passionately Zionist”. Lately, he’s noticed himself swiping past people he might have otherwise found attractive, because he assumes they won’t share his stance. “I can feel that I’m being less nuanced [in my thinking], and I still am unable to lift myself out of this hole because I’m in pain,” he said.

I don’t want to have to defend the most core parts of my identity in my most intimate relationships

The war has exacerbated this tension within the Jewish community in the US, some of whom believe their Judaism requires them to support Israel, and others who believe Jews have a responsibility to be more outspoken against Israeli violence. (Jewish anti-Zionist groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace have led some of the largest anti-Israel demonstrations in the last year.) Ari said the debates and protests of the last year had made him feel “really judged by and uncomfortable around anti-Zionists”, including other Jews, and he was anxious about facing that judgment in his romantic life. “I don’t want to have to defend the most core parts of my identity in my most intimate relationships,” he said.

Hoda Abrahim, a Muslim matchmaker from Houston, Texas, said she had worked with thousands of Muslim singles over the past 10 years, from many different cultures and backgrounds. Many of them already wanted to marry someone from the same country of origin, she said, but in the last year, that had become non-negotiable for many of her Palestinian clients. “A majority of my Palestinian clients will be like, ‘You know, I used to be open, but actually now I just want somebody from Palestine,’” she said. “A lot of them are dealing with family members getting killed or their homes destroyed, and they want to be able to connect over that with their life partner. They kind of feel like there’s something missing if they don’t have these shared experiences.” Clients who previously did not think much about their heritage are now “really leaning into it”, she said, telling her: “I want the shared common language, I want the shared food that we cook in our home.’”

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But even for those who do find a partner who shares their religion and culture, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be aligned on their views about Gaza. The lawyer and writer Tahirah Nailah Dean, a 29-year-old Muslim woman from Oakland, had been married to her husband for just over a year when the war broke out. She was crying nearly every day, she said, and protesting in person and on social media, while her husband – also a Muslim – seemed largely unaffected. Soon after, he told her he wanted a divorce.

His reasons were largely unrelated to their reactions to the war, but for Dean, “it was really devastating, because for ever the end of the marriage is going to be coupled with this new waging of genocide of my brothers and sisters in Palestine,” she said. “It’ll never be disconnected from that.” Looking back, Dean said, it had been clear their differing responses to the war were a sign of conflicting values. “When I do start to date again, it’s going to be someone that goes out into the streets and is actually doing something to bring attention to issues like this,” she said. “Me and my friend circle, we’re not interested in someone who’s going to be passive about this.”

Shahzad Younas, the founder of the Muslim dating app Muzz, said the war had also changed the tenor of conversation on the app – so much so that it drove him to launch a social media platform inside it earlier this year, where members can discuss their opinions without necessarily looking for love. “There wasn’t really a space online for Muslims,” he said. “For us, providing that space for people to be able to talk and learn about [the war] is super important.” A woman had recently posted a thread on the social platform about meeting a Muslim man who “wasn’t empathizing with the Palestinian cause”, he said. “For her, it was a bit of a dealbreaker.”

I’m not worried about not getting those matches, because that’s not my person

Some Jewish dating apps are also seeing an increase in users, with the members-only app Lox Club telling the Guardian it had seen more than 1m matches on its platform this year – more than twice as many as the year before. “We have a lot of anecdotes around people valuing finding a Jewish partner more than ever, because they ‘get it’,” the app’s founder, Austin Kevitch, said in an email. “And extra pressure from Jewish parents for their kids to marry Jewish now more than ever.”

While dating apps provide an easy way to filter by religion or political belief, they’re also a clunky medium for addressing a sprawling international conflict. Talking about the subject on apps like Bumble and Hinge – the domain of smiling selfies and enthusiasm for the cold side of the pillow and the New York Times crossword – can feel jarring. There’s a sense that the apps, with their limited character counts and pithy prompts, can flatten views on the subject, leaving those who choose to address it on their profiles seeming one-sided and without nuance.

Ari said he was not a fan of Zionists with pro-Israel messages in their profiles: “I kind of resent that they choose to express their beliefs that way,” he said. Still, he acknowledged that anyone who expresses pro-Palestinian views on their profile would also be “an immediate swipe left – I hope not because I’m judging them for their beliefs, but because I’m positive that they will judge me for mine.” Another Jewish man, who described himself as largely pro-Palestinian, said his reaction depended on the potential match’s tone. “It’s like, ‘Can you express yourself and let people know where you are – and where you’d like them to be – without making it look like you’ve forgotten you’re on a dating app?’” he said.

But for others the war is simply impossible to ignore, even in dating. “This time is really painful and horrifying to me, so when you get on the apps and have to be like, ‘Hey just chillin’, how are you?’ it feels really inauthentic,” Anna said.

And some feel stating their views loudly and proudly on the apps acts as a kind of filter, weeding out those whose beliefs would be a non-starter. Sanya, a 29-year-old living in Phoenix, Arizona, was born in Pakistan and raised Muslim, and is passionately pro-Palestine. She has tried out Muslim dating apps, but said it was hard to find connections there because of her more westernized, less traditional lifestyle. “I think a lot of Muslim people look down on how I practice my religion because I don’t fit into the stereotype that they want me to,” she said.

Because of this, Sanya tends to frequent secular apps like Hinge, where she can meet Muslim and non-Muslim men who better match her lifestyle. In these multicultural spaces, however, she feels the need to be more explicit about her views on Palestine. After getting out of a long-term relationship with a man that ended, in part, because of his ambivalence toward the situation in Gaza, she updated one of her Hinge profile prompts to read: “Let’s make sure we’re on the same page about Israel being a terrorist state.”

Sanya said she wasn’t worried about people on the apps judging her for the stance. “My profile also says I’m Muslim,” she said. “If you can’t read those two things and put them together and understand that this is an issue that’s very personal to me, and you’re going to say I don’t want to give this person a chance because they’re very forthright about their feelings on this, then you’re rejecting a part of my identity.” She added: “I’m not worried about not getting [those] matches, because that’s not my person.”

That’s why Anna, who was raised in a Zionist household but is now deeply involved in pro-Palestinian Jewish activism, said she wasn’t too concerned about being unmatched over the watermelon emoji in her Hinge bio. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go on a date with that person anyway,” she said. “For me, what this is all about is: are you curious? Are you self-reflective? Do you care about injustice and are you willing to engage in these tough subjects, even if that might be painful for you?” She added: “That’s what I would be looking for in a partner anyways.”

Some people interviewed asked for their names to be changed

• The image in this article was replaced on 9 October 2024 to include a wider range of screenshots from dating apps.