Celebrity matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom has launched a global Jewish matchmaking movement to help singles find love.
The mother-of-five, who has a hit show on Netflix, believes the ambitious plan will help tackle what she describes as a “crisis” for the international Jewish community.
In an exclusive interview with the JC, Ben Shalom said the idea is to train people all over the world to help Jewish singles marry.
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The movement, founded in collaboration with World Mizrachi, will have 12 “epicentres”, in Europe and across the globe with several in North America. Each will have a matchmaker training others to make introductions, while also staging numerous dating events.
“This is not aimed at the religious community – the religious community has its matchmakers,” Ben Shalom, 48, said of the movement whose tagline is “guaranteeing the Jewish future”.
“My focus is secular, non-observant, through traditional and even modern Orthodox.”
The personal touch is all important in an age of technology, she said.
“I don’t have a problem with apps in general but for the fact that people don’t know how to use them to their best advantage,” she said. She believes such apps have “gamified” the search for love. “Every time you swipe, whether you say yes or no, it gives you a dopamine hit. Men need to swipe an average of a thousand times before they get a date and for women it’s 1,500. Do you think a date is going to be better than a thousand dopamine hits?
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“We’ve now broken people and trained and conditioned their body to be excited for a superficial nanosecond.
“Then you put them in front of somebody, they have a coffee and think ‘I’m not so interested, next.’
“They literally swipe them in front of their eyes. They gamified dating to the point where they broke people and now they have to fix it.”
An ideal fix would involve “reclaiming yenta”, she said. “I firmly believe I’ve been given a mission in life not just to make matches but to give others the tools to make matches.
“Anyone can make a match – you don’t have to be a matchmaker. I recommend my doctor to you? That’s a match. Jews love to recommend – why are we so afraid of recommending a person?”
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Ben Shalom is one of 150 people on the new council formed by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog to tackle the biggest challenges facing the global Jewish community.
She told the JC she was surprised to be invited to apply. “My initial response was ‘Is it legitimate and if it’s legitimate, is it important?’ If it’s important, you reached out to me? President Herzog, you’re calling me?”
Once she understood the concept, she didn’t hesitate. “If we’re coming together to do something meaningful and put a stamp on the Jewish timeline and make an indelible mark on history, I’m in.”
The council will work on five key challenges. Ben Shalom’s group is tackling “Israel and world Jewry”. She feels the question of marriage should top the agenda. “If you put people together you build families and if you build families you build communities. In building community, you change the world,” she said.
