Aleeza Ben Shalom, the star of the popular Netflix series “Jewish Matchmaking,” teamed up with matchmaking platform Shagrigim BaLev (“Ambassadors of the Heart”) to teach hundreds of people how to best secure a Jewish future by learning how to help Jews marry other Jews in an event last week in Jerusalem.
Held at the Nefesh B’Nefesh Campus in Jerusalem, it taught a diverse audience the tools they need to make the best matches possible.
“I was looking to make a major impact, and I believe we need a Jewish matchmaking movement. I wanted to collaborate with people who have a similar mission. While everyone is not a matchmaker, everyone can make a match,” Ben Shalom said.
“Shagrigim BaLev has the same philosophy,” she continued. “I wanted to do this with them and all the other supporters because we want to reach out to as many people as possible to secure our Jewish future through marriage.”
She added, “We have soldiers on the ground fighting, so we’ll have a land, but will we have a people? Marriage is the only way to secure our future.”
The event included a networking session for professional matchmakers and aspiring ones. It was followed by a question-and-answer session with Ben Shalom, who offered practical advice that touched on topics like how to handle burnout after many years of unsuccessful dating and advice on how to seek out appropriate matches.
“We wanted to empower everyone to know how to make a match,” said Ayelet Glatt, international coordinator of Shagrigim BaLev.
During the event, Glatt explained how the platform works. Essentially, the social-technological initiative dedicated to helping individuals within the Orthodox Jewish community find their life partners, is set up by a carefully curated group of ambassadors—1,000 volunteers in total—who have pledged their time and personal connections to help those who are close to them find the love of their life. Since its establishment in September 2019, some 345 couples have stood under the chuppah thanks to the network—so much so that one Shagririm BaLev couple has been getting married, on average, every five days.
The network was born out of a student computer science project at the Jerusalem College of Technology, which developed into a student social activity supported by the head of the school’s beit midrash, Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon. In its infancy, the platform was exclusively for JCT students. Now, through partnering with World Mizrachi, it expanded its initiatives—not only within the entire national religious community in Israel but beyond the country’s borders as well.
As such, Shagrigim BaLev has grown by leaps and bounds in the English-speaking world and includes hundreds of ambassadors in the United States. In Israel, many Anglo immigrants have expressed interest in the platform as many arrive searching for a community and have difficulty meeting new people.
“We’re so proud that JCT is part of a legacy of helping Jews find their life partner, building a future together and strengthening the fate of Am Yisrael [‘the Jewish people’],” said Stuart Hershkowitz, chairman of JCT’s executive committee and a co-founder of Shagririm BaLev.
The college, he stressed, is not just an institution of higher education: “It has always played a significant role in addressing social issues facing the Israeli population. There’s no greater honor than helping one find the person that they choose to spend the rest of their life with.”
