OUR COMMUNITY
Connecting Jewish Singles Local matchmaking expert who has created thousands of dates shares her dating advice. ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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or 10 years, Rebbetzin Rachel Tessler Lopatin has worked as a volunteer matchmaker for SawYouAtSinai, an online matchmaking platform for Jewish singles. She’s helped create thousands of dates worldwide, more than a dozen of which have led to marriage. “If you know the type of person they’re searching for, you will hopefully be able to connect them with great people,” she says of matchmakers like herself who strive to make connections between Jewish singles. The Lopatin family is Modern Orthodox, giving Tessler Lopatin a unique
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understanding of the community and an edge in Jewish matchmaking. She says family members will often tell her, “You understand the subtleties of it.” Recently, Tessler Lopatin, 54, of Huntington Woods and wife of JCRC/AJC Executive Director Rabbi Asher Lopatin, spoke about her matchmaking process and offered advice for Jewish singles on a new Jewish podcast, America’s Top Rebbetzins. “We all need to be thinking about people who are single,” she says of the human power to foster connections. “The more people you meet, the more people you are able to
connect other people with. There’s good that results from that.” While dating and finding a life partner may be the ultimate goal for many who turn to online dating platforms, Tessler Lopatin says the benefits go far beyond love. “Friendships have been made; jobs have been made,” she describes. “Sometimes I’ll introduce people and there’s no love connection, but they invite them to a Shabbat meal and then they connect with someone else there, or they see them at kiddush.” MAKING A MATCH Matchmaking is for
ABOVE: Rabbi Asher Lopatin, Rebbetzin Rachel Tessler Lopatin, children Judah, Shayna, Gideon and Cara Lopatin.
everyone, Tessler Lopatin believes. “I work with people from all backgrounds and all over the world,” she says. Many of her matches have been long distance, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns and health restrictions made location matter less, and connection and interaction matter more. In making a match, Tessler Lopatin says she factors in different criteria: “What are the things that they can be flexible on and what are the things that they’re not willing to be flexible on?” “Are they flexible religiously?” Some people, she explains, look for a partner with the
