NEW YORK, January 1, 2003(JTA)

As of the beginning of this New Year, Jews across the world were stricken with shock and disappointment to find that when they opened up their homepage, set to onlysimchas.com, there was nothing.

No simchas to vicariously experience, no photo galleries to scavenge for dates, no simcha polls to fill out, and no obscure pop up advertisements featuring IM conversations between Yeshivish girls. The site - empty, all the galleries - gone. The worst part of the situation is that no one knows what happened to the simchas.

Not even the Katz duo, the site’s creators. But one thing is certain: Conspiracy is in the air.

“Why should I bother getting engaged?” exclaims Rachel Devorah Guttenstien (Brooklyn, NY), “ No one will believe me anyway!”

“This is horrible” remarked a whining Shira Wein, (Lawrence, NY), marrying David Kaplanoff (Woodmere, NY) on March 28th, Save the Date, Post a message

“How will anyone know my wedding was much more extravagant than theirs?”

Analysts of modern Jewish social behavior expect the demise of Onlysimchas.com to cause a dramatic decline in engagements, and a marked increase in couples deciding to just live with each other.

On the other hand, shares of IDT and other companies employing large numbers of Jews shot up this morning, expecting a dramatic increase in worker productivity.

“Where else are [IDT employees] going to go on the internet,“ remarked an ecstatic IDT CEO James Courter, “Bangitout.com? Hah!”

“I used to post a message on every Onlysimchas guest book webpage. After all, I’m at most 2 degrees separated from everyone on that site,” said a Jewish computer programmer working for Lehman Brothers living in Washington Heights. “You know the posts that start out with ‘Remember me?’” continued the programmer, “That was me!”

But the implications to the Jewish community seem much more severe than the economic benefits.

Jewish singles, for one, will have lost a resource for dating.

“This is a very sad day," lamented an anonymous single living in the James Tower,

“I may have to find a different criteria for dating girls other than looks.”

Following the comment he and his friends began to laugh uncontrollably, and the interview had to end prematurely.

Said one Jewish girl waiting for her date in the brookdale lobby “Without Onlysimchas It took me 48 hours before I found out that someone I went to camp with after 5th grade got engaged. I was mortified to be the last to know!”

Even across the globe in Israel, many are distressed.

Said a recent immigrant: “Getting on Onlysimchas was one of the major benefits to making Aliyah. And now that I can’t keep up with the recent simchas happening back in Shmutz L’aaretz [a Bnei Akiva term for America], I’m beginning to wonder if I can make it out here.”

But many in the Jewish world have not yet ruled out conspiracy. “This attack was too perfect,” commented a representative of the Jewish Defamation League.

“It’s just too good. They hit the one thing that all Jews look to at least twice a day.”

“We are a simple people. We like to know what each other is doing, and speak about it to anyone who doesn’t know. We also like everyone to know when good things happen to us. Good things usually revolve around lots of good food and nice clothing, and sushi – I cant stress that enough.” remarked Shiyah Issahotty, onlysimchas' most prolific commentor.

“This is why Onlysimchas was the perfect site, whoever is responsible for this isn’t your average day terrorist, they are perceptive.” said ADL representative, Ed Goldberg. "We're keeping an eye on all the popluar Jewish websites and associated porn sites like bangitout.com"

Most, however, will be able to resume life once the site re-opens, since nobody looks at the older simchas anyway.

“What’s the big deal?” replied the anonymous single from the Westmont. “If the simcha is more than a week old, the girl's pictured probably got engaged already.”

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