Friends Dana Hall and Elizabeth Shapiro are looking for 12 single Jewish men, one for each month of their forthcoming 2012 “Mensch of the Month” wall calendar.
“Hunky blond firemen just don’t do anything for me,” says the 26-year-old Hall.
Shapiro, also 26, feels the same way, so the two co-workers at the San Francisco Food Bank set out to produce a calendar featuring the kinds of guys they themselves would like to meet. After doing some research and finding that a “Nice Jewish Guys” calendar already exists, they decided to go the more local route.
Limiting their call for pinups to the Bay Area made sense, given that the project is a fundraiser for SMART (Schools, Mentoring and Resource Team), a San Francisco educational nonprofit that provides scholarships for underprivileged youth to attend private middle schools. Hall and Shapiro volunteer their time as tutors and mentors in the program.
“We figured that producing the calendar would be a fun way to have a hobby, get the word out about the SMART program and meet some nice Jewish guys,” says Hall.
The women are taking applications from any and all men, so long as they are Jewish and single, on a rolling basis. Although the deadline for submissions is Nov. 1, the women received several applications from would-be menschy models within hours of posting the call on their blog on Oct. 12.
Putting the emphasis more on “nice” than “cute,” they are looking for “kind, smart guys who do nice professional or philanthropic work.” Hall adds that “our definition of cute is wide.”
The application process is not onerous. Aside from providing basic information and, of course, a photo (or link to a Facebook page), there are just a few questions to answer. But they are key ones: What makes you a mensch? What matters to you? What Jewish celebrity crush do you have (other than Natalie Portman)? What is your favorite Jewish food?
That last question is crucial for Hall and Shapiro, who are both into cooking and baking. “If the answer to the favorite Jewish food question is ‘I don’t have one,’ that is not going to be good,” Hall says. “Now, if a guy were to say his favorite food was his mother’s kugel, that would just be adorable.”
The women hope that “Mensch of the Month” will be the first of many calendars they will produce. “Ultimately we’d love to do one of Jewish mothers and their best recipes,” Hall shares.
In the meantime, they are focusing on getting the calendars ready to sell during the winter holiday season. They expect to price them around $25, with “a good chunk of that donated to the SMART program,” according to Hall. The models, as well as photographer friends of the women, are expected to donate their time to the project.
Hall wants all the Bay Area mensches out there to know that they are not restricting submissions to only straight guys. Neither are there limits on age. “We believe in equal opportunity menschyness, just as long as a guy is living in the Bay Area, Jewish and single,” says Hall.
“Put it this way,” she says, “we’re looking for chosen, not taken.”
For more information or to apply to be included in the calendar:
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://menschofthemonth.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @menschmonthly
This piece first appeared on the Forward’s blog “The Schmooze.”