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Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
L ast March, Cherry Hill, New
Jersey, resident Ryan Green
packed a bag and his roller-
blades and traveled to Kansas City,
Missouri, to go on a date with a woman
he knew nothing about.

Avid Netflix watchers or reality televi-
sion buffs may know what happens
next: Green’s date was featured on
episode seven of Netflix’s “Jewish
Matchmaking.” The eight-episode reality TV show, a
spinoff series of “Indian Matchmaking,”
follows matchmaker (and 2013 Tribe 12
fellowship alum) Aleeza Ben Shalom as
she works with Jewish singles across
the country and across denominations
and Jewish upbringings.

In the show’s seventh episode, “So
the Song Goes,” Ben Shalom meets
Nakysha, one of the few Jews of
color in Kansas City’s Jewish commu-
nity. Nakysha is a Reform Jew in her
mid-20s looking for a nice Jewish boy
no older than 33 with a full head
of hair and tolerance for motorbikes
and guns.

Enter Green, 38 and bald, but a
teacher who is “personable, talkative,
friendly, outgoing, communicative”,
Ben Shalom insists.

The pair share a date at the roller
skating rink Nakysha grew up going
to, and Green shares his experience
with ice skating as a kid and having a
brother with disabilities, who inspired
him to become a special education
teacher. “I went into it as if it was someone
that they felt was a compatible match
for my personality and her personal-
ity,” Green said. “And I took it as, this is
an opportunity to meet someone new
to hopefully see if it was a true match,
and then go from there.”
Green prepared for the date as he
would any other, and treated it as
though there weren’t any cameras
8 MAY 18, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Aleeza Ben Shalom and Ryan Green
around. After the date, he flew back
home. Though the match didn’t spark a
romantic relationship, Green said the
experience was growthful and made
him more open-minded to meeting
Jews across denominations and
backgrounds. “It definitely made me think about, to
become more open or more vulnerable
to having potential dates — Everyone
has a different religious standpoint in
Judaism, where she has her religious
standpoint; I have mine,” Green said.

“Everyone is Jewish in their own
separate ways.”
Green first learned about the oppor-
tunity to be on “Jewish Matchmaking”
from Philadelphia-based matchmaker
Michal Naisteter, who had worked
with Green previously. Naisteter would
occasionally connect Green with a
client before Green became Naisteter’s
client a few years later.

Naisteter, who referred dozens of
singles to pursue a casting call for the
show, thought Green was a good fit.

“When I was working with him
closely as a matchmaking client, he
was open to matches; he was open to
new ideas,” Naisteter said.

“For me, he was just like a dream,”
she added.

Green’s hometown of Buffalo, New
York, had a dearth of Jewish dating
options, making the Philadelphia area
an appealing dating scene when he
arrived in Cherry Hill in 2009.

Green is tethered to his Conservative
Jewish upbringing, making dating
Jewishly a priority: His mother, who
died in 2017, instilled in him the
value of marrying a Jew, and his
family belongs to Congregation Beth
Tikvah in Marlton, New Jersey. Green
also serves as a board member for
the Philadelphia Jewish National
Fund-USA’s JNFuture Philadelphia
Board, helping to fundraise for
JNF-USA and recruit young philanthro-
pists to the organization.

Like many other singles, Green was
fed up with using dating apps and
was drawn to matchmaking as a more
meaningful way to find love. But like so
many on the show, Green was not able
to find a romantic match.

This is a typical part of the dating
process and an important depiction of
dating, Naisteter said.

“I loved watching every single date.

Every single date was important
because every single date gives you
an opportunity to work on presenting
yourself,” she said. “Saying ‘no’ is just
as important as saying ‘yes’.”
Dating is vulnerable, even more
so on television in front of a global
audience. Naisteter was glad that no
one on “Jewish Matchmaking” was
married after the first season, as it
was a more realistic portrayal of what
dating is like.

“That’s just what dating is, you
know?” Naisteter said. “It’s a world of
possibilities and a world of rejection.”
Matchmaking is more than just
setting people up on dates, Ben
Shalom said. It’s about mentally and
emotionally preparing someone for the
highs and lows of dating and opening
hearts to connection.

“I help people to build their confi-
dence,” Ben Shalom said. “When a
match doesn’t work, we know it’s not
the right person and we don’t blame
ourselves.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Jennifer Milton
Cherry Hill Teacher Shares Experience
on Netflix’s ‘Jewish Matchmaking’



YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

Rabbi Kami Knapp Schechter
Courtesy of Kami Knapp Schechter
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
R abbis are usually the ones stewarding congregants through life
cycle events, such as births, deaths, coming of age and marriage,
but what happens when a rabbi goes through those same
monumental life moments?
Congregation Or Shalom Rabbi Kami Knapp Schechter, who just
turned 40, is returning to her synagogue on May 22 after maternity leave,
having given birth to twins three months ago.

As she plans to step back on the bimah, the spiritual leader of the Berwyn
Conservative synagogue is honest about the difficulty of the transition.

“If I can’t advocate for time and space to properly heal myself, then
I can’t be there 100% for my congregants, and that’s what’s most
important," Knapp Schechter said.

The role of a rabbi is precarious, as
it means being emotionally available to
the community, but still professional. As
she navigates being a new mother to
three, she has to balance her job and
congregation’s needs with her boundar-
ies and hopes her community trusts and
supports her.

Some congregants don’t want to
see the person giving them spiritual
guidance in their own period of turmoil
or emotional distress, Knapp Schechter
said. It’s a struggle to see their rabbi as
someone who is not perfect. It can sow
doubts in their minds about the strength
of their spiritual leader.

“Rabbis are people too,” she said.

Knapp Schechter joined Or Shalom in
2019. She decided to stay in Philadelphia
after graduating from the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College in 2017, falling in love
with the city and her now-husband, who
she had just begun dating.

In the four years since becoming
rabbi to a community of 75 families,
she’s gotten married, had two births
and experienced the death of her
brother two weeks before her twins
were born.

Or Shalom’s 75 family units witnessed
those moments, including a wedding
celebration and the bris of her twins
over Zoom. Their willingness to support
Knapp Schechter was one of the reasons
she joined the synagogue.

“They were very open and excited
about my continuing journey, both as a
rabbi and also as a person,” she said.

She has the same faith in her congre-
gation today. Next month, she will host
a kiddush to thank the synagogue for
their support and allow them to meet
her twins.

Motherhood has been especially
transformative in Knapp Schechter’s
relationship with God. In the middle of
the night, exhausted while feeding her
babies, the rabbi sometimes speaks to
God, yearning to connect with or get a
response from the almighty.

“Finding the holy moments in every
day is so real and pressing and diffi-
cult during a postpartum period,” she
said. “I would say I have experienced
and cultivated my relationship with God,
more so in these moments than in other
moments of my life.”
Originally from Seattle, Knapp
Schechter was always involved in
Jewish community but did not immedi-
ately seek it out in the rabbinate. She
studied international studies at the
University of Seattle, hoping to one
day become a diplomat or work for the
United Nations.

She moved to London for a few
years, attending a synagogue there,
but the country on the brink of a reces-
sion required any immigrants who
weren’t students or workers to leave.

Knapp Schechter returned to the U.S.

without any next steps to pursue inter-
national studies and consulted a life
coach. Always connected to Jewish commu-
nity, Knapp Schechter realized she could
make it her job to deepen those connec-
tions. The then-29-year-old matriculated
at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College. “I wanted to grow personally, as a
Jewish person,” Knapp Schechter said.

“I wanted to be in an environment
where I could learn, where I could be
challenged, where I could be in relation-
ship with really amazingly intelligent
Jewish scholars.”
Last month, though still technically
on maternity leave, Knapp Schechter
returned to the bimah to help lead
services for a bar mitzvah for a family
with whom she was close. She stayed for
the service but left before the kiddush
luncheon to take care of her family.

The moment marked an example of
how she wants to shape her future at Or
Shalom: on her terms, with mutual trust
between congregant and leader.

“I know I was able to go back and
support the family because if I hadn’t
been in a position to, say, emotionally or
physically, if I was not able to be present
in that moment or be there, they would
have understood,” Knapp Schechter
said. “... It’s a relationship.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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