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At a live event with Netflix’s ‘Jewish Matchmaking,’ fans of the show find their people
(New York Jewish Week) — Aleeza Ben Shalom, star of the Netflix hit “Jewish Matchmaking,” stood in the middle of a tight circle of fans — both men and women, young and old — doling out dating advice. Maintaining the same warmth she displays on her TV show, Ben Shalom spoke to as many people as she could as mothers pushed their daughters to the front of the line, single women hung on her every word and superfans asked for hugs and selfies.
Ben Shalom, who lives in Israel, was in New York on Wednesday night to make an appearance at a promotional, sold-out event for the series as well as her book, “Get Real, Get Married.” Some 200 people filled the auditorium at The Town School on the Upper East Side, having paid $54 for a ticket (or $72 if they wanted to attend the VIP meet-and-greet beforehand).
“Thanks everybody for watching the show — you watched the show right? We can’t get a season two unless you watched all the episodes,” Ben Shalom quipped as she greeted the crowd from the auditorium’s stage.
A dating reality show, “Jewish Matchmaking” premiered on Netflix on May 3 to much fanfare. Created by the same team behind the streaming service’s hit “Indian Matchmaking,” “Jewish Matchmaking” spotlights a diverse group of Jews who are looking for love in Israel and across the United States. Viewers watch as Ben Shalom tries to set folks up with their bashert — soulmate — and explains Yiddish/Hebrew words and Jewish customs while doling out gentle, sensible dating advice.
In a short time, the eight-episode series has developed a loyal fan base, while reviewers have called “Jewish Matchmaking” “smart and sweet.”
As for the reason for the show’s success, “There’s everything from the girl that doesn’t want to marry someone that eats bacon, to someone like me who wants someone that prays three times a day in shul,” Brooklynite Fay Brezel, one of the show’s Orthodox stars, told the New York Jewish Week. “I think that’s what people really love about the show: It makes everybody proud to be Jewish no matter where you are with it.”
On Wednesday, Ben Shalom and Brezel were joined onstage by several other members of the cast, including Shaya Rosenberg, whom Brezel briefly dated on the show, as well as Miami resident and eyebrow expert Dani Bergman; Sephardic event organizer David Behar of Miami; Los Angeles-based “unicorn” Harmonie Krieger; outdoorsy Noah Dreyfus of Denver (and Jackson Hole) and Chicago musician Stuart Chaseman.
Aleeza Ben Shalom, fifth from left, with cast members from her hit Netflix show “Jewish Matchmaking,” on stage at The Town School, May 17, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
As for the audience, it skewed female — though like the cast of the show, they represented a diverse cross-section of Jews, including Sephardic, Israeli and Ashkenazi, as well as Reform, haredi Orthodox and everything in between.
Attendees’ reasons for buying a ticket to the event were just as varied. One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she came to the event because the show moved her so much. “I am not a reality TV person at all,” she said. “I just felt so inspired by the show. Aleeza was such a warm, positive presence to see on Netflix, and she gave me so much hope for myself that I’ll be able to find someone and so much hope for the Jewish people.”
And yet the woman, who lives in New York, said she also hoped to ask Ben Shalom for dating advice.
Others came to meet and praise their favorite cast members. “I have never felt more validated in my life,” one viewer gushed to Bergman. (Bergman, for her part, told the New York Jewish Week that hearing such sentiments has been the best and most unexpected part of the show.)
More than a few single women were sent to the event at the behest of their worried Jewish parents. “I’m young, I’m 24, I have a lot of great things going on in my life,” said Yael Chanukov, a Manhattan-based actress who recently appeared in two episodes of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. “But my parents are so concerned about me finding someone. They bought me the ticket, sent me the email confirmation and said I had to ask Aleeza for advice.”
Chanukov came solo, though she said she would have brought her roommate if she had been in town. “I really loved the show, so I am happy to be here regardless,” she added.
Another woman who wished to remain anonymous said that her parents in Long Island watched the show and immediately bought her tickets to the event, telling her she had to talk to Ben Shalom about her dating life. “I had nothing going on tonight and I live nearby. I’m single, so I figured, why not?” she shrugged. “Anything could help.”
As for the advice Ben Shalom gave her? “She told me to stay open and stay hopeful,” the woman said.
Sacha-Aviva Sellam, 30, came because she was inspired by the diversity of Jewish experiences on the show. “I loved the show and found it very relatable,” Selam, who is of North African descent, told the New York Jewish Week. “[Ben Shalom] had a sensibility for all Jews, and Netflix was careful to include and uplift everyone — not just the ultra-Orthodox or the stereotypical ‘bagels and lox’ Jewish experience, which is not me.”
“I’m not here specifically because I’m single, but would I like it very much if I happened to meet someone here somehow? Of course,” she joked.
During the event, guests got to hear from the cast about their favorite parts of the show — for Brezel, it has been messages to her that people have become more observant after watching. “When was the last time that you heard somebody say that they are going to be more careful with mitzvot after watching something on Netflix?” she said. “I don’t think that’s ever happened.”
Behind-the-scenes details that weren’t filmed or didn’t make the final cut were also shared — like Krieger’s vulnerable, late-night calls with Ben Shalom; Dreyfus taking Ben Shalom on a six-mile hike in Jackson Hole; Brezel’s mother baking the production team cookies in Brooklyn, and Ben Shalom helping Bergman hang a mezuzah on the doorpost of her Miami home.
During a Q&A session, everything was on the table. One man jokingly asked Bergman to rate his eyebrows — she gave him a solid 7.5. A young woman of Orthodox background asked Brezel how to be more vulnerable with matchmakers. The answer? It’s not necessary, Brezel responded, unless they are someone with whom you have a genuine connection — like Ben Shalom.
Of course, Ben Shalom delivered on what had brought so many there that evening: She shared her best dating tips, including that connection starts the moment you walk in the room — so present your best self inside and outside. She even brought some audience members on the stage for live matchmaking. Four volunteers from the audience — all women — were invited on stage; other audience members asked questions about their lives and dating preferences. After a few rounds of questions, Ben Shalom asked if anyone in the room knew of a good match — and, Jewish geography being what it is, four women headed into the evening with the contact information of three or four potential dates.
“I didn’t think I’d have so much fun during this experience — I feel like I’m more of like a type-A personality but [“Jewish Matchmaking”] really brought out my fun side,” Brezel, who brought friends and family friends to the event, told the New York Jewish Week. “Everywhere I go people are stopping me and asking for selfies. It’s such a crazy experience.”
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JD Vance continues to minimize right-wing antisemitism as fringe influencers gain ground
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance again downplayed the idea that conservatives should safeguard their ranks against antisemitism, a week after his ally Tucker Carlson hosted yet another antisemitic conspiracy theorist on his web show.
Vance’s latest brief comments, made Tuesday during an interview with conservative radio host and CNN pundit Scott Jennings, came in response to Jennings asking, “Does the conservative movement need to warehouse anybody out there espousing antisemitism in any way?”
“No it doesn’t, Scott,” the vice president replied, toward the end of their interview.
Vance continued by asserting that conservatives, drawing on Christian influences, were welcoming of all backgrounds.
“I think we need to reject all forms of ethnic hatred, whether it’s antisemitism, anti-Black hatred, anti-white hatred,” he said. “And I think that’s one of the great things about the conservative coalition, is that we are, I think, fundamentally rooted in the Christian principles that founded the United States of America.”
He added, “And one of those very important principles is that we judge people as individuals. Every person is made in the image of God. You judge them by what they do, not by what ethnic group they belong to.”
Vance’s comments follow a series of similar remarks by the vice president over the past month as major right-wing groups such as Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation grapple with the growing influence of Nick Fuentes and other openly antisemitic forces. Vance has also indicated his own skepticism in the U.S.-Israel relationship and stated that stopping immigration is the best approach to fighting antisemitism.
One Jewish conservative analyst still employed with Heritage — after a slew of employees left for a competing group — criticized Vance’s latest comments.
“Need a better answer from @JDVance on why the conservative movement should not tolerate antisemitism than what is effectively the equivalent of @TheDemocrats’ ‘…and Islamophobia’ response,” Daniel Flesch, a Heritage policy analyst for the Middle East and North Africa, posted on the social network X.
Flesch referenced his contention that Democratic leaders’ stock answer to addressing antisemitism is that it must be paired with addressing Islamophobia, rather than treated as its own unique problem.
Among Jewish conservatives’ biggest areas of consternation within the party right now: Carlson, the media figure who has platformed Fuentes and other conspiracy theorists while also maintaining close ties with Turning Point, Heritage and Vance himself. This week in Israel’s Knesset, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party denounced Carlson and fellow podcaster Candace Owens by name in an English-language speech.
Last week Carlson continued to fan the flames by hosting Ian Carroll, a conspiracy theorist who has proclaimed “Israel did 9/11”; that “Israel did their best to embellish and enflame the history books” on the Holocaust; and that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was “working on behalf of Israel.”
Carroll has made inroads in the conservative media sphere for a while. He appeared on Joe Rogan’s mega-popular podcast last year and, in 2024, moderated a campaign event for then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., today President Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services. Carroll’s appearance on Carlson’s show came after both Trump and Vance refused to denounce Carlson for his friendly interview with Fuentes last year.
In their Jan. 2 interview, Carroll and Carlson primarily discussed the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. Carroll shared numerous conspiracy theories about the events of that evening, during which the shooter also fired rounds at a jet fuel tank stored at a nearby airport.
“And then there’s things happening at the airport that are strange, that there’s some shooting happening at the airport. So it’s like, is this a gang war between the Italian mob and the Jewish mob? Is this a CIA operation that went wrong?” Carroll muses at one point. “Is this, like, a Mossad operation? Any of those things would need to fit the facts.”
Carroll continued, “In lieu of enough facts, you can try to fit a perpetrator to the facts and invent explanations that will work.”
Later in the interview, Carlson muses about Carroll directly to him, “I’ve never seen anybody come to prominence faster, ever, in our world. And that’s led to a lot of speculation that you’re, like, a CIA officer in disguise.”
Carroll then offers, “Or I’m like, Mossad.”
To which Carlson concludes, “My personal explanation is you’re just an amazing explainer and a diligent researcher, and you’re really interested in what’s true. And those are the three qualities that make a successful person in our world.”
The post JD Vance continues to minimize right-wing antisemitism as fringe influencers gain ground appeared first on The Forward.
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EU-Funded NGO Backed Online Platform Targeting Jewish Businesses in Catalonia
Supporters of Hamas demonstrate outside the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 18. Photo: Reuters/Guillermo Yllanes Gonzalez
The controversial online platform mapping Jewish-owned businesses, schools, and Israeli-linked companies in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain, was promoted by an EU-funded non-governmental organization.
On Tuesday, NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released new information showing that Engineers Without Borders – Catalonia (ESF-C) and Universities with Palestine (UAP) jointly promoted the BarcelonaZ project on social media, identifying themselves as its primary backers.
First reported by the local Jewish outlet Enfoque Judío, the interactive map was launched by an unidentified group claiming to be “journalists, professors, and students” on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCarto.
As a publicly accessible and collaboratively created online platform, the map marked over 150 schools, Jewish-owned businesses — including kosher food shops — and Israeli-linked as well as Spanish and international companies operating in Israel, labeling them as “Zionist.”
“Our goal is to understand how Zionism operates and the forms it takes, with the intention of making visible and denouncing the impact of its investments in our territory,” the project’s website stated.
According to NGO Monitor’s newly released report, ESF-C is a European Union–funded NGO running a Youth Internship Program subsidized by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia, with 40 percent co-financing from the European Social Fund Plus — the EU’s primary program for funding employment, education, and social initiatives.
The EU Financial Transparency System shows that ESF‑C partnered on two EU grants worth about $2.8 million from 2019 to 2023 and received at least $164,000 in funding.
Jewish leaders in Spain have strongly denounced the BarcelonaZ initiative, warning that it fosters further discrimination and hatred against the community amid an increasingly hostile environment in which Jews and Israelis continue to be targeted.
“The mapping and boycotting of Jewish businesses in Catalonia is an echo of some of the darkest chapters in history, including the prelude to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,” the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Director of European Affairs, Shannon Seban, said in a statement.
“The organizers of this initiative put a target on the backs of Spanish Jews, at a time when Jews are being hunted across the globe, as seen so horrifically in Australia just three weeks ago,” she said, referring to the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others.
“Clear incitement to violence of this nature must not be platformed or tolerated by internet companies or government authorities,” Seban continued.
On its website, ESF-C describes its mission as promoting “a fair international society, which does not exclude anyone,” and highlights its commitment to “non-denominationalism and non-partisanship.” Yet, the NGO’s 2024 annual report also asserts that it “cannot ignore the Palestinian resistance, a clear expression of the struggle for freedom of all oppressed peoples.”
In a social media post, the NGO also accused Israel of “genocide” during its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, describing its platform as “a resource designed to inform, raise awareness, and mobilize the educational and student community in Catalonia.”
“The attacks that began on Oct. 7 have involved water and electricity cuts, the boycott of essential water infrastructure, and the contamination of Palestinian water sources,” ESF-C wrote in an Instagram post, without mentioning the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“The violation of these basic rights is a key weapon used by the State of Israel to perpetuate genocide,” the statement read.
NGO Monitor also revealed that UAP is a network of Catalan faculty- and student-led anti-Israel organizations that co-sponsored the BarcelonaZ project.
Last year, UAP organized a “People’s Court” at Complutense University of Madrid on what it called the “Palestinian genocide,” with attendance from several terror-linked NGOs and individuals, including Samidoun, Masar Badil, Al-Haq, and Raji Sourani, NGO Monitor reported.
Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination.
Earlier this week, GoGoCarto announced it had removed the BarcelonaZ project from its website after local groups denounced the initiative as blatantly antisemitic and dangerous.
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Knesset member from Netanyahu’s party decries ‘new enemy’: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens
(JTA) — In an address to the Knesset on Monday, Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz decried what he said was a “new enemy” rising within American politics: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
“We are used to enemies from outside. We fight terror tunnels of Hamas. We fight the ballistic missiles of Iran. But today I look at the West, our greatest ally, and I see a new enemy rising from within,” said Illouz, who is originally from Canada originally, in an English address. “I am speaking of a poison being sold to the American people as patriotism. I’m speaking of the intellectual vandalism of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.”
Illouz’s comments come as the Republican party has been roiled in recent months by debates over the mainstreaming of antisemitic influencers within the GOP.
טאקר קרלסון וקנדיס אוונס הם לא פטריוטים – הם ונדלים אינטלקטואלים. הם טוענים שהם נלחמים בשמאל הקיצוני, אבל הם בדיוק אותו דבר: אותה שנאה למערב, אותו רלטיביזם מוסרי ואותו ניסיון להחריב את המורשת שלנו ואת המערב. pic.twitter.com/ygN70WtGEw
— דן אילוז – Dan Illouz (@dillouz) January 7, 2026
In October, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson hosted far-right antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes on his platform, igniting outrage from Jewish conservatives who warned of the growing reach of antisemitic voices.
Owens has long made antisemitic rhetoric a hallmark of her YouTube channel, which has 5.7 million subscribers. A recent analysis of her content by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that three-quarters of her videos that mentioned Jews were antisemitic.
“They claim to fight the woke left. They are no different than the woke left,” said Illouz. “The radical left tears down the statues of Thomas Jefferson, Tucker Carlson tears down the legacy of Winston Churchill. The radical left says Western civilization is evil, Candace Owens says the roots of our faith are demonic. It is the same sickness.”
Carlson and Owens are among the right-wing influencers who have made opposition to Israel a centerpiece of their output, at a time when support for Israel is declining among conservatives, particularly younger conservatives.
In November, Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister, echoed Illouz’s concerns in an interview with the New York Post, telling the outlet that he was “far more concerned about antisemitism on the right than on the left.” The comments were notable because Chikli is himself a right-wing, anti-“woke” warrior who, in a first for Israel, has stoked relationships with far-right European parties that in some cases have ties to the Nazis.
“One of the worst moments was when a popular conservative broadcaster called one of the most vile Holocaust deniers in America ‘one of the most honest historians.’ That legitimizes hate — it normalizes it,” Chikli told the New York Post, appearing to refer to Carlson’s past praise of the Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper.
Chikli also warned against the rising influence of Fuentes and Cooper among young Americans.
“Antisemitism has become fashionable for Gen Z,” Chikli continued. “They listen to podcasts, not professors. When people like Nick Fuentes or Darryl Cooper are treated as thought leaders, that’s dangerous. These are neo-Nazis.”
The Times of Israel asked Illouz whether he was worried about appearing to interfere with American politics. “Defending the alliance between America and Israel is not interfering,” he said. “I am in touch with many pro-Israel conservatives who know that Candace and Tucker are a threat to America as much as to Israel.”
Top GOP officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have largely dismissed calls from Jewish conservatives, including Ben Shapiro, and others to draw a line against antisemitic influencers.
“Do you think you are the first to try to delegitimize the Jewish people? We are the people of eternity,” said Illouz toward the conclusion of his address, adding that “we will be here long after your YouTube channels are forgotten dust.”
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