Jewish-only dating site offers free alternative to speed dating events

In the span of a year, Justin Corsa, 31, turned a hobby into a website with more than 13,000 active members.

SuperTova.com, marketed as a free alternative to a similar faith-based dating website — JDate.com — is a Jewish-only dating site that allows singles to meet online.

Members can set up dates with available singles, similar to the likes of Match.com or eHarmony.

Inspired by his experiences growing up in an interfaith household, Corsa said the goal of his site is to push how critical it is to date within the faith and preserve the Jewish culture through marriage.

Corsa said he created the site, which doesn’t require a membership fee, to bring widely dispersed Jews together in one place online.

“I don’t think dating sites are the most popular for college students to meet other students,” IU freshman Daniel Rajczyk said. “We’re already surrounded by other people our age.”

The IU campus also offers ways for Jewish students to meet, adding more free opportunities for dating.

The Helene G. Simon Hillel Center sponsored two speed dating events this school year.

One was organized by the Greek Jewish Council and the other was for IU graduate students.

“A lot of Jews are raised in the same way so having a faith-based dating site probably works better for the sake of compatibility,” Jordan Rothenberg, engagement associate at Hillel Center, said.

Rothenberg said both were successful events and allowed students to interact with people they wouldn’t know otherwise.

Corsa said his site began fully operating in early 2010, and he has manually approved each profile on the site to confirm the authenticity of each user.

SuperTova has members in all 50 states, along with some international users.

There have been three engagements between couples who met on the site since it began last year, and the average user is between 18 and 28 years old, Corsa said.

“If I could, I would definitely want to find my own wife on this site,” Corsa said.