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In ‘Jewish Matchmaking,’ a diverse set of Jews experience Orthodox dating practices
(JTA) — According to Jewish lore, God has been making matches since the creation of the world. Aleeza Ben Shalom has been at it only since 2007 — but the Jewish matchmaker is about to bring what she calls “the most important job in the world” to the masses.
As the host of “Jewish Matchmaking” on Netflix, Ben Shalom adapts the model of Orthodox arranged matches to Jewish singles from a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds, including secular, Reform and Conservative Jews from across the United States and Israel.
Formal matchmaking, known as shidduch dating and considered de rigueur in haredi Orthodox circles, has been depicted as oppressive and constricting on Netflix dramas such as “Shtisel” and “Unorthodox.” But Ben Shalom believes her basic approach to love and marriage makes sense for a wide array of people — and she’s out to prove it.
“I’m hoping that people will see that matchmaking and Judaism is not just something that’s old, but that’s timeless, that’s relevant,” Ben Shalom told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“We can use this beautiful, ancient tradition of matchmaking and bring it to modern life, and help people to find love from any age, stage, any background. It doesn’t matter. It’s universal,” she said. “The wisdom that I share is from Judaism. It’s based in Torah, but it’s for the world. Anybody of any background, of any culture can watch this, can learn something from it and can implement it in their lives.”
Ben Shalom isn’t the first to make the case that matchmaking services can help a wide array of Jews find lasting love. Ventures such as YentaNet, a pluralistic matchmaking service that arose about a decade ago, and Tribe 12, a Jewish nonprofit working with young adults in Philadelphia where Ben Shalom got her start, have sought to pair Jewish singles who might be a good fit for each other.
But the practice is most common in haredi Orthodox communities, where the norms around shidduch dating are well known and closely followed. Daters have a “shidduch resume” outlining their education, interests and family background; parents are involved in the process; and dating is intended to move quickly toward marriage. Dates typically take place in public spaces and couples are expected not to touch until they are married.
In formal Orthodox matchmaking, the shadchan, or matchmaker, is usually compensated by the parents, receiving around $1,000 upon a couple’s engagement, although higher-end services may charge more. Some matchmakers may charge a smaller amount for the initial meeting with a client, while Ben Shalom’s company, Marriage Minded Mentor, charges $50 to $100 an hour on a sliding scale based on the client’s salary. (Sima Taparia, the star and host of “Indian Matchmaking,” the Netflix show that inspired “Jewish Matchmaking,” reportedly charges her clients around $1,330 to $8,000 for similar services.)
Matchmakers keep records of who in their communities is looking for a match, but they can also tap into networks of other matchmakers and databases of singles as they seek to pair their clients. “We don’t believe in competition, we believe in collaboration,” said Ben Shalom, who is currently based in Israel.
Ben Shalom grew up in a Conservative Jewish community where matchmaking was not the norm, and later became Orthodox. She knew her husband for three weeks before becoming engaged, then touched him for the first time during their wedding four months later.
She knows that most participants on “Jewish Matchmaking” are unlikely to follow those same restrictions. Still, she encourages them to at least try.
“I’m really trying to have you guys touch hearts,” Ben Shalom tells Harmonie Krieger, a marketing and brand consultant in her 40s, as she explains why she wants Krieger to abstain from physical contact for five dates. “You will gain clarity. If there’s no physical glue holding the relationship together, then there’s actually value-based glue that’s holding the relationship together.”
“I will accept the challenge,” Krieger says. “Maybe. Let’s see how it goes.”
Harmonie Krieger, one of the clients and cast members of the show, is challenged not to touch her dates for their first five dates. (Netflix)
Krieger is one of a number of non-Orthodox Jews who opted to be cast on “Jewish Matchmaking” after being unsatisfied with their own dating efforts. There’s Nakysha Osadchey, a Black Reform Jew who is desperate to get out of Kansas City, Missouri, where she hasn’t had luck finding a partner who understands her multicultural background. Living in Tel Aviv via Rome, Noah Del Monte, 24, is the youngest of the group, an Israeli army veteran and diplomat’s son who wants to transition from so-called “king of nightlife” to husband. In Los Angeles, Ori Basly, who works for his family’s wedding planning business, is looking for a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Israeli woman to fall in love with and bring home to his family.
The Jews cast on the show are all in different places in their lives, some grieving serious breakups or committed to specific religious identities, some picky about looks or hoping their partner will be OK with riding motorcycles. Some of them are looking for particular Jewish commitments to concepts such as tikkun olam, which means “repairing the world” and has come to represent a social justice imperative for many liberal Jews; others want to be sure they’re matched only with people who share their approaches to observing Shabbat and keeping kosher.
Nakysha Osadchey from Kansas City, Missouri is looking for someone who understands her multicultural background as a Black Reform Jew. (Netflix)
Pamela Rae Schuller, a comedian whose material frequently centers on living with Tourette syndrome, a nervous system disorder, demurred when Ben Shalom first offered to set her up about seven years ago, after attending one of Schuller’s shows in Los Angeles.
“I was picking career first. And there are a lot of complicated feelings around dating and disability,” said Schuller, who stands 4 feet 6 inches tall and frequently barks because of her syndrome. “And I never even thought about a matchmaker.”
But in 2022, Ben Shalom reached out again, this time with a possible match, and a catch — it would be for a new Netflix show she was set to host. This time, Schuller was ready.
“I have this life that I really, really love. I’m just at the point where I’ve realized I’d like someone to start to share that with,” she said. “I’m not going into this looking for anyone to complete me.”
Pamela Rae Schuller, a comedian whose material frequently deals with living with a disability, makes an appearance on “Jewish Matchmaking”. (Courtesy Pamela Rae Schuller)
Getting back into dating and then appearing on the show, which Schuller hasn’t seen yet, was both scary and exciting, she says
“I’m about to put myself out there. I think that’s scary for everyone, disability or otherwise,” Schuller said. “But I also want to see a world where we remember that every type of person dates.”
Plus, she added, “I love the idea that Netflix is willing to show diversity in Judaism, diversity in dating.”
Ensuring that she show accurately represented American Jews was the responsibility of Ronit Polin-Tarshish, an Orthodox filmmaker who worked as a consulting producer on “Jewish Matchmaking.” Her role was to ensure that Judaism was portrayed authentically. She also worked to help the Orthodox cast members feel more comfortable with their involvement on the show.
“Being Orthodox is who I am, and of course it infused every part of my work,” said Polin-Tarshish, who herself used a matchmaker to find her husband.
Multiple recent depictions of Orthodox Judaism in pop culture — including the Netflix reality show “My Unorthodox Life” — have drawn criticism from Orthodox voices for getting details of Orthodox observance wrong or seeming to encourage people to leave Orthodoxy. Both “My Unorthodox Life” and “Unorthodox,” based on the Deborah Feldman memoir of the same name, depict formerly Orthodox women who left arranged marriages they described as oppressive.
Meanwhile, other depictions of Jews have been panned for botching details. Those include a grieving widow (herself not Jewish, but mourning a Jewish husband) serving hamantaschen at the shiva in the 2014 film “This is Where I Leave You,” and a storyline on the Canadian show “Nurses” about an Orthodox man rejecting a bone graft from a non-Jew.
“So many times we watch shows as Jews and we kind of gnash our teeth, and are like, ‘They got it wrong! They got a basic thing wrong!’” said Polin-Tarshish, who previously produced the first-ever feature-length film by Orthodox women and worked on another reality show about arranged marriages across cultures. “That was my whole job, to make sure that they got it right. And thank God, baruch Hashem, I think we really did.”
Asked if her involvement on “Jewish Matchmaking” has received any pushback, Ben Shalom said she had gotten questions about how she could know whether the showrunners will accurately represent who she is.
Ben Shalom said she was confident in the production based on what she saw on “Indian Matchmaking,” but also because she believed she could pull off the delicate balance needed to represent her own community and make for great entertainment.
“You have to be smart about how you share who you are with the world, and you have to be authentic, and you have to be real, and you have to be true,” she said. “And you have to do that on reality TV with strangers that you’ve just met, and you have to do an interview. So only because I saw it done beautifully before, I knew that I had the ability to do that as well.”
Polin-Tarshish is excited for viewers at home to identify with the cast of “Jewish Matchmaking,” and to even get frustrated by some of the cast members’ actions. But most importantly, she says she is excited to have real, three-dimensional Jewish characters on screen.
“They’re real people in every sense of the word,” Polin-Tarshish said. “There are characters you’re going to love, there are characters you might even love to hate. But that’s life.”
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The post In ‘Jewish Matchmaking,’ a diverse set of Jews experience Orthodox dating practices appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Jon Stewart, Here Is Your Chance to Be a Mensch
Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” on April 8, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
There is no doubt that Jon Stewart has great comedic ability and the gift of gab. In a sneak attack many years ago, he had a mic drop moment where he destroyed Tucker Carlson’s show CrossFire, telling him to stop hurting America. At that time, all Carlson did was have an aggressive political debate show — he wasn’t spewing Jew-hatred and conspiracy theories.
Stewart, who must know something about antisemitism because he felt a need to change his name from Leibowitz to Stewart, raised The Daily Show to great heights and came out of retirement ostensibly to try to make sure that President Trump is lampooned.
I know Jon Stewart is a person who cares about justice, because he fought very hard for the rights of 9/11 firefighters. The passion Stewart showed and his ability to speak truth to power was unrivaled. Some even thought he even had the potential to be a president one day. If Ukraine can have a president that was a comedian, why not America?
Of course, Stewart would be good if his focus was justice. It isn’t always. Sometimes, it’s only about haranguing Trump, no matter what. How about a few shows against antisemitism. He took on Tucker Carlson once. Why not do it again? While Tucker’s no longer wearing a bowtie, he’s saying he was attacked by a demon and Candace Owens is making claims about time machines. What about a one-hour Netflix or Apple TV+ show lambasting them both. It would be monumental.
But Stewart is hoping that Carlson and Owens continue to wreak havoc, and benefit the Democratic Party. And with only a few more years of Trump, those who want to vilify him want to get their last shots in and may not want to divert to something else. I believe that Stewart is against antisemitism. But he should call it out on all sides, and not mock Israel, a country that faced genocidal terrorists who would kill every Jew if they had the weapons to do so.
Jon Stewart is 63 and mentally sharp. He is capable of much better jokes than about physical appearance, which he recently used to attack Sid Rosenberg. Stewart would be better off criticizing Rosenberg’s positions, or perhaps that’s a bit more difficult these days.
If Stewart really wants to advance justice, he could start by attacking antisemites and racists, on both the right and left. He has the rare talent to do it in an impressive way.
Jon Stewart was the greatest mensch when he fought for firefighters. This is his time to do it again.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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Fatah Glorified Munich Olympics Massacre Ahead of 2026 Winter Olympics
An image of one of the Palestinian terrorists who took part in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
While the world was preparing to celebrate the Olympic Games in Italy, Fatah celebrated Olympic blood in Munich.
Just two weeks before the opening of this year’s Winter Olympics, Fatah — the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s ruling party — chose to revive and celebrate the most infamous act of Olympic terrorism in history: the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were murdered.
On its Facebook page, Fatah’s Commission of Information and Culture posted a segment from its Awdah TV channel, glorifying the massacre as “a surprise Israel had not experienced before” and recounting how terrorists, whom she called “self-sacrificing fighters,” infiltrated the Olympic Village, seized Israeli hostages, and issued demands.
Responsibility for the murders was subtly shifted away from the terrorists, while the operation was presented as daring and historic:
Fatah-run Awdah TV host:“In September 1972, Israel was about to receive a surprise it had not experienced before. Eight self-sacrificing fighters [i.e., terrorists] invaded the quarters of the Israeli sports delegation that was participating in the Olympic Games in the German city of Munich. They captured nine Israelis and demanded to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners [i.e., terrorists] who were in the Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of the hostages. Israel refused to negotiate, and the hostages were killed.”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, Jan. 22, 2026]
On the same day, Fatah’s Commission of Information and Culture also lionized the architect of the Munich massacre, Ali Hassan Salameh, as “The Red Prince.”
Fatah described him as a brilliant “security mind” and strategic genius whose operations allegedly “embarrassed Israel:”
Text on screen: “The Red Prince, the commander whom the Mossad pursued for years. Ali Hassan Salameh was not a shadowy figure, but rather a security mind who created a secret battle …
He joined Fatah in the mid-1960s and was among its first security personnel. He quickly stood out for his organizational wisdom and ability, and sensitive missions were entrusted to him … He led the security activity of the revolution outside Palestine and built a complex defense network that embarrassed Israel. He became a central target of the Mossad, and his name topped the assassination lists.
[Then Israeli Prime Minister] Golda Meir gave the order to eliminate him, and the pursuit after him crossed continents … On Jan. 22, 1979, the Mossad assassinated him in Beirut using a car bomb. His assassination did not put an end to his presence, rather it established his status as one of the most dangerous minds of the revolution. Ali Hassan Salameh, a security commander and one of the symbols of the hidden strugglewith the occupation.” [emphasis added]
Posted text:“The Red Prince Ali Hassan Salameh, the commander whom the Mossad pursued for years”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, Jan. 22, 2026]
Even more than 54 years later, the PA’s ruling party still treats the Munich Olympics massacre as a legacy to be celebrated.
By deliberately highlighting this massacre just before the Milano Winter Olympics, Fatah yet again shows how it is proud to promote terrorists and terrorism.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a researcher at Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), where a version of this article first appeared.
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How NPR Whitewashes the Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Program
Stuart and Robbi Force (left), parents of Taylor Force, with Reps. Doug Lamborn and Lee Zeldin. Taylor Force was killed by a Palestinian terrorist while visiting Israel. Photo: Algemeiner.
Even for NPR, the latest segment on its popular “All Things Considered” program crossed the line.
Headlined “Palestinian Authority tries to reform, but one measure is sparking a backlash,” the segment focused on the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s controversial “pay-for-slay” program, where imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their families, or the families of Palestinians who were killed while committing acts of terrorism or trying to harm Israeli security forces, receive financial stipends.
However, instead of taking a critical look at “pay-for-slay,” NPR provided cover for the insidious PA program.
To begin, NPR immediately whitewashed the program in the subheading, referring to it merely as “payments to families whose relatives are killed or jailed by Israel.”
There was zero mention of the fact that this program incentivizes violence and terrorism by paying out more to families of terrorists than the PA’s regular social welfare pay-outs. In addition, there was no mention that these payments are based on the length of prison sentences rather than actual financial need.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
No, @NPR, this isn’t the reason the PA program is “controversial.”
The recipients of the cash are families of TERRORISTS – not Palestinians who committed minor crimes or were innocently caught in the crossfire, but bona fide terrorists whom you appear to be whitewashing. pic.twitter.com/WH0q1AkOBj
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 10, 2026
Throughout the story, NPR’s Emily Feng downplayed the vile nature of “pay-for-slay.”
“Pay-for-slay” wasn’t presented as a dangerous incentive for the murder of innocent Israelis, which was the target of American legislation (The Taylor Force Act).
Instead, the program was merely characterized as “controversial.” But using public funds to incentivize terrorism is something much more grave and consequential.
Along with this false characterization, NPR also portrayed the truth about the program as Israeli criticisms that “the PA pushes back against.”
It would be hard to find a more watered-down depiction of “pay-for-slay.”
Further on in the segment, Feng interviewed a Palestinian woman named Inaan who was receiving a monthly payment of 1,400 shekels ($440) since her son had been killed by the IDF.
This doesn’t seem like a lot of money. However, Feng failed to inform her audience that this is only the payment for family members of those killed by Israeli security forces (after a one-time payment of 6,000 shekels).
Terrorists in Israeli prisons can receive up to 12,000 shekels (roughly $3,900) per month.
This presentation of the monthly payments being inconsequential and of limited value is further emphasized by Feng’s next interviewee, Qadura Fares, who is quoted as saying, “The money — it’s mean [sic] nothing for those have believed [sic] that this occupation should be ended and to fight the occupation.”
Fares is the former head of the PA’s prisoners’ affairs commission. In passing, NPR also informed its audience that Fares served time in Israeli prison for “trying to kill Israeli soldiers.”
That’s right, NPR platformed a convicted terrorist.
Perhaps the words of someone who used to target Israelis should be taken with a grain of salt when discussing payments for imprisoned terrorists.
Fares resigned from his position after PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced an end to the “pay-for-slay” policy, stating that the only recipients would now be those who require economic assistance. Many groups, including Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), have provided documentation that the PA is still continuing “pay-for-slay” — though the PA is trying to hide the payments.
Along with Fares, Feng interviewed a couple of other Palestinians who were upset with this alleged reform and complained that the new system is not working properly.
What Feng failed to inform her audience is that this “reform” is alleged by analysts like PMW to be a ruse, with Abbas promising a Palestinian audience that imprisoned terrorists and the families of “martyrs” would continue to receive funds, and that the “reform” is more of a restructuring than an outright end to “pay-for-slay.”
Nearly a year after this “reform” was announced, many beneficiaries were still reportedly receiving their payments.
Perhaps the cherry on top is when Feng referred to the alleged reform as “trying to please outside powers.” As if the program didn’t require serious reform, but rather that the PA capitulated to foreign interference.
A whitewash indeed.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.