Finding Jewish Love in the Modern World: A Conversation with Aleeza Ben Shalom
Aleeza Ben Shalom is a matchmaker, relationship coach, and author who gained international recognition as the star of Netflix’s hit series “Jewish Matchmaking.” With a passion for helping Jewish singles find love, Aleeza has dedicated her life to ensuring Jewish continuity through meaningful marriages. Rabbi Aron White spoke with Aleeza about her journey to becoming a matchmaker, her Netflix show, and her new partnership with World Mizrachi in the Jewish Matchmaking Movement.
For those who haven’t seen your Netflix series or read your book, can you tell us about your background and how you became a matchmaker?
I grew up in a secular Jewish conservative household in Philadelphia. In my mid-20s, I went to a Jewish singles retreat that completely transformed my relationship with Judaism. After that experience, I embraced Judaism more deeply, taking on Shabbat, kashrut, modest dress, and prayer. About eight months later, I got married at 25.
After having two kids and being in what I call “baby land,” I was looking for some adult interaction. A friend mentioned she was a matchmaker on a dating website, and I immediately wanted to do that too. She connected me with Saw You At Sinai, and when they asked if I was willing to work with older singles or those “out of town,” I enthusiastically said yes to everything, not knowing what any of it meant!
I quickly learned what those terms meant in the matchmaking world – how difficult it is for people who are older singles, second-time singles, or have kids in the mix. I was dealing with the more challenging cases from the start without realizing these were considered the hardest situations in shidduchim. I fell in love with it.
Aleeza and her husband at their wedding, and now. (Photo: Courtesy)
What did you learn from your early experiences in matchmaking?
I realized that people would say yes or no to potential matches very quickly. I’d think, “You don’t even know what you’re saying no to. I spent hours searching for this match, and in half a second, you say no.” So I started calling people before even suggesting a match. I would coach them informally, and then I developed a coaching and matchmaking model where they went hand in hand.
I wouldn’t matchmake someone unless I was coaching them. If someone said, “I don’t need coaching, everything’s fine, just send me a match,” I wouldn’t work with them. From there, I started training other matchmakers and coaches and built my own internal team.
I wrote my first book, “Get Real, Get Married,” which I self-published. This became my passion, my dream, my avodat Hashem. Nothing is more exciting to me than helping to create Jewish families – I wake up excited about it and go to sleep excited about it.
How did you go from matchmaking in America to starring in a Netflix series?
Over the years, I had several television opportunities, but I turned them down because I was concerned they wouldn’t represent Judaism positively. I remember once turning down a big opportunity, and turning to Hashem, “Hashem, that was a really big one – please send me something good!”
In summer 2020, during COVID lockdowns, a matchmaker friend named Laurie Young called me after declining an interview with Netflix for a Jewish matchmaking show. She gave them my number, so a shadchan literally made the shidduch between me and Netflix!
This happened right when my family had decided to make Aliyah. The borders were closed due to COVID, and I said to my husband, “If they lock a Jew out of Israel, that is unacceptable. If I’m going to be locked, I’m going to be locked in, not out!” So we committed to moving as soon as Nefesh B’Nefesh were able to process our paperwork.
While preparing for Aliyah in the summer of 2020, I continued interviewing with Netflix – even though it was going well, they still had to get the show approved, and there is a whole process. We made Aliyah in March 2021, and just 11 days later, after quarantine, I went to the Kotel. It was an incredible feeling, that we had made it to Israel, myself, with my husband and our five kids (plus our pandemic puppy). While I was finishing my prayers and wiping my tears, the producers called me, “We just got the greenlight for the show!” It felt like G-d was saying, “You made Aliyah, you’re standing at the Kotel, and now you have a show!”
I had to keep it a secret the whole time because they announced the show was coming but didn’t reveal who the matchmaker would be. We filmed for seven months in 2022, from February to October, and the show was released in May 2023. I kept disappearing, and people would ask questions. All the teachers at my children’s schools would say, “Aleeza, we don’t understand. You made Aliyah, you work in shidduchim, but you have to go to the States so much? Why are you gone so often? We need meetings with you about your children.” I couldn’t explain that I was filming for a show – I couldn’t say anything.
What was the reaction like when the show came out?
The producers prepared me for a 50-50 split of lovers and haters, and they told me not to read all the reviews that came out. I couldn’t help myself, and did read a lot of the reviews! What I experienced was about 98–99% positive reactions from around the world – from Jews and non-Jews, religious and secular. The few criticisms often came from people and sometimes those people hadn’t actually watched the show.
What came out so great in the show was the diversity of participants, representing such a broad picture of the Jewish people – completely secular, traditional Jewish, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and even people who didn’t identify with any of these categories. They represented different parts of Israel too, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They included singles from their 20s to their 50s.
I was also told the momentum would last maybe 60 days before fading, and then the next big thing comes along. Instead, I’ve been on tour for two years, flying out of the country 18 times. I’ve visited over 80 cities worldwide – in Australia, Chile, Argentina, London, Germany, all over the United States and Canada. The excitement about Jewish matchmaking and marriage hasn’t ended.
Tell us about the Jewish Matchmaking Movement with Mizrachi. What is it doing as a next step?
The Jewish Matchmaking Movement is a community-based initiative with the goal of guaranteeing our Jewish future. One problem I’ve encountered is people telling me, “If Aleeza can’t make my shidduch, nobody can. You’re my last hope, or I’m marrying a non-Jew.” Dozens of people have told me this, which is an unacceptable burden for one person.
I spoke with World Mizrachi about creating a global, community-based matchmaking initiative. I want every community to have a lead matchmaker who doesn’t just make matches but makes matchmakers – training the entire community how to make shidduchim. My vision is that any lay person should be thinking about others and making match suggestions at least once a month. That’s 12 times a year that you should suggest a match to somebody, regardless of their age or your relationship to them. Everyone should be helping everyone.
The most common excuse I hear is “I don’t know anybody.” Really? We’re the Jewish people – we talk enough to know plenty of people! It’s like when your kids come home from school and you ask, “How was school?” and they say, “Fine.” “What did you do?” “Nothing.” It’s a kop-out excuse, but not the real truth!
We recently had two 90-year-old mothers playing mahjong who set up their children. The “kids” are in their 70s and have been dating for the last six months – all because the mahjong mothers made a match! This is exactly the kind of community involvement we’re trying to foster.
Rabbi Danny Mirvis, CEO and Rabbi Doron Perez, Executive Chairman of World Mizrachi, together with Aleeza are partners in the Jewish Matchmaking Movement. (Photo: Krifkind Photography)
How do you envision this movement operating on a global scale?
I want to have at least 12 epicenters around the world, each in charge of a region. Every community needs to take responsibility for this work.
For example, if Germany becomes an epicenter, they would be in charge of the European region. We have contacts there and are in discussions with them. They would get trained first and know how to lead a community and a region, in the same way that Mizrachi has different regions. South America would be its own region, Central America would be another. In the US, we need epicenters in major cities like New York, Miami, Chicago, and LA. Canada would be its own region – we have a lead rabbi, Rabbi Yisroel Bernath in Montreal who could be the epicenter.
In my ideal world, every community would have a rabbi on staff, an educational director on staff, and a matchmaker on staff. Every community should have a paid Yenta whose job is to run singles events, community gatherings, and train more matchmakers. It shouldn’t be on one person to be the savior of the community – it should be a community-led effort. Nothing is better for helping your community grow than continuing to build Jewish families!
We want communities to run between six to twelve programs a year for singles – at minimum every other month, ideally once a month. These events can break even financially or even generate income to pay for the matchmaker’s salary. You can find donors too – matchmaking is hot right now and brings more members into communities.
We’ve already run two International Jewish Matchmaking conferences in Jerusalem, and I’m reminded we need to plan our 2025 conference soon! We usually hold them right after the chagim, when people from around the world are still in Israel. We get between 100 to 200 people who want to talk about what we’re trying to do.
The goal right now is to get the information out there: What is the Jewish Matchmaking Movement? What are we trying to do? What does it mean to create a movement? Then we want communities to start buying in one at a time. I will go to those locations, train them, help them establish staff, and connect them to the broader movement through WhatsApp groups and regional networks.
I believe it will grow very organically and probably very quickly because people will have FOMO – a fear of missing out. They’ll be asking, “Didn’t Aleeza come to your community? Why don’t you have this program?” We want singles and community members demanding, “Where’s our Yenta? Why don’t we have regular programming?”
The intermarriage rate in America is over 70%. Not even 50%, which would be bad enough – 70%! As much as Hamas, Hitler, and others have done to us, we haven’t been good to ourselves. So many Jews outside Israel, especially in America, don’t even know who they are.
Other communities worldwide are more traditional. Even if they’re not religious, they’re still involved in synagogue and community, and their kids are 80% more likely to marry Jewish. But every Jewish community is facing challenges with intermarriage.
I’m getting calls from leaders all over the world saying, “You’re the one who knows this best. You’re the one invested in this the most, with the most energy, drive, passion, and wisdom about what to do. Please come help our communities.”
We also ran a conference in Philadelphia called “Yenta-con,” where we brought 50 matchmakers from around the world, including some non-Jewish matchmakers who had Jewish clients. We were motivating them to help Jews marry Jews. Some would say, “But my clients don’t mind if they marry anybody,” and we’d respond, “Right, but they should be with Jewish people.”
Aleeza Ben Shalom with participants at the 2nd International jewish Matchmaking Conference, a collaboration with Shagririm Balev and World Mizrachi that was held at the Nefesh B’Nefesh center in Jerusalem, December 2024. (Photo: Jamie Gordon)
What do you think educators of teenagers should be teaching about relationships and marriage?
The most important message is that being Jewish matters, and raising a Jewish family is important. The single best way to do that is with a Jewish partner.
If young people don’t value Judaism or have a connection to Judaism, G-d, or their community, they’ll ask, “What does it matter if I marry Jewish?” We have statistics showing that if a Jewish person marries another Jewish person, there’s a 93% chance their kids will be raised in a Jewish home. If they marry someone non-Jewish, that percentage drops dramatically.
Judaism has to feel special and important. Antisemitism can’t be our identity. We have to have a much stronger Jewish identity that comes from a place of love and beauty. If we only share that Jews are hated and wanted dead, our kids won’t want to be part of this.
What advice do you have for people bridging cultural divides when dating outside their community?
I’ve been all over the world and met people from many cultures. Sometimes we have very little language connection, but there’s non-verbal communication. In Judaism, we believe words from the heart enter the heart. There are many ways to bridge gaps.
We might have different Jewish customs, but at the root of it, we’re Jews who love the Jewish people. Will you learn a new language? Sure. Will you learn new customs? Sure. Different doesn’t equal bad – it’s just different from what you’re used to.
Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is key. Curiosity needs to be our best friend. Many people fear, “You’re going to take my children away from me. They’re going to move to another country.” Maybe they will, but the Jewish world is really small. With modern technology, you can see family members frequently, even if they live far away. And we have travel, which even though it isn’t always cheap, is still a world of difference from how it was 50 years ago.
Don’t be afraid if your child wants to move to Israel. Let them be surrounded by Jews from all over the world. Israel is the biggest melting pot – Russians, Italians, French, Germans, South Americans, South Africans, Americans, Canadians! Sometimes we have language barriers or cultural differences, but it’s actually gorgeous – like the most beautiful painting of different colors and flavors. It’s something spectacular.