If you’re a single Israeli looking for love, especially if you were hoping to meet someone at a Purim party this year, this war might be driving you to despair, but help is on the way – now there’s an app for finding a date in a bomb shelter.
While singles might dream of locking eyes with someone across a crowded shelter, the problem in the past was whether to chat someone up without knowing their relationship status.
But given the profusion of young people in Tel Aviv and the many app developers in the Start-Up Nation, the Hooked app seems like an inevitable solution.
Developed by Noa Barazani and Roi Revach, the Hooked app was around before the war and was created to allow singles to find each other at events. Those running events get a QR code that they post at the entrance to the event, as well as online.
Singles upload a profile to the app and can browse a list of events to register in advance or scan the QR code at the event entrance. They then get a list of singles who match what they are looking for, and others at the event can view their profile.
If two people match via the app, they can start chatting through the app or make the long walk across the room, knowing the other person is interested in meeting them.
But once Operation Roaring Lion started, Barzani and Revach quickly adapted it to where it was needed most: bomb shelters. People can now organize an event at their shelter and post the QR code at the shelter entrance.
Hooked lets Israelis find love in bomb shelters
Singles fleeing bombs became aware of the app after a tweet on X/Twitter by Yael Bar Tur went viral on Sunday:
“Of course, some genius Israelis invented an app where you can scan a barcode and see who’s single in the shelter,” and attached a link to Hooked.
The tweet was reposted on X by no less than Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, who wrote:
“With the entire country on ‘shelter in place’ mode, we should have expected something like this! They call Israel ‘Start-Up Nation’ for a reason. Someday they will tell their kids, ‘We met on a dating app in a shelter while dodging ballistic missiles.’”
Comments online were overwhelmingly positive, although one X user named Hello pointed out, “You can also hold eye contact, saves battery.”
Others joked that the app must have been created by Jewish mothers and that this kind of Israeli ingenuity is why Israel has such a high birth rate. Jonathan Pesso wrote on X: “My god, only Israel could make me feel jealous not being there in a bunker during a time of war.”
In an article about the app in The Jerusalem Post in February, Barazani wrote: “Since launching in Israel, Hooked has been used at more than 70 events across six cities, generating hundreds of matches, with about 65% of participants actively engaging rather than just passively joining.”
She added, “Maybe the boldest move isn’t downloading another app. Maybe it’s looking up. Because no one falls in love with a profile. They fall in love with a person standing right in front of them.”
Barazani’s comments came just weeks before this war started.
Now, Hooked users can fall in love with that person standing right in front of them – in the shelter. And their hearts can beat faster with anticipation and not just fear.