wonderful weddings
This Jewish Couple
Ended Their Wedding Tour with a
Colorful Oaxacan Ceremony
F Alix Wall | JTA.org
she was focused first on her job as a producer of
external communications for the educational technol-
ogy division of the World Bank and her all-consuming
side project as the founder of Future of Women,
which hosts breakfast events around the world and
hosts a podcast for women leaders.

But in her childhood home, with no timeline for
when life would resume, she decided to dive into
dating, drawing on her extensive experiences living
and traveling abroad to experiment with what would
generate the most promising results.

“I put my location as different places, like Mexico
City or London, for the fun of it,” she said. “When
we were so isolated, to have contact with people
in these places was nice. But, then, I put myself in a
Photo by Mónica Godefroy
or the third of their three weddings, Hallie
Applebaum and Elan Raffel set up a chuppah
in Oaxaca, the Mexican city where they first
confessed their love for each other.

Oaxaca is a vibrant hub of Mexican folk art and
incredible food, but Jewish life? Not so much.

Nonetheless the couple chose there to wed in an
egalitarian Jewish ceremony led by the groom’s
sister, Libby Smoler, on Feb 26. And when seven
family members and friends gave their interpre-
tations of the seven traditional blessings, one of
Applebaum’s sisters wished them a lifetime of adven-
tures and delicious meals.

The wedding came just over three years after the
pair met — online, from their parents’ houses early in
the pandemic.

Applebaum’s parents weren’t subtle about wading
into her dating life after she moved home to Portland,
Maine, in early 2020, the only one of their four
children to do so. Her father showed her a video
about dating apps, and her mother asked her for a
demonstration. Applebaum, 35, downloaded Hinge. The next
thing she knew, her mother was hooked. “She’s
swiping and swiping, and saying, ‘This is fabulous,’”
Applebaum recalled, adding with a joke, “I told her,
‘You have to have some standards.’”
In Los Angeles, where Applebaum had been living,
20 MAY 25, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT



Photo by Taylor Applebaum
more realistic location.”
That location was New York City,
where she soon encountered Raffel, an
attorney in the tech industry.

The pair matched and soon learned
that they had a lot in common. Like
Applebaum, Raffel had moved back
in with his parents at the start of the
pandemic — in his case Pikesville, a
heavily Jewish suburb of Baltimore.

Both attended Jewish day schools
growing up; both spent time living
abroad (Applebaum in Guatemala,
Ecuador, and while pursuing a master’s
degree in Great Britain at the London
School of Economics, and Raffel in
his mother’s native Israel); and both
enjoyed fine food and off-the-beaten-
path adventures.

After months of phone calls and
probing conversations — some fueled
by “The 36 Questions that Lead to
Love” as appeared in The New York
Times — they decided that Raffel would
join Applebaum for a camping trip in
Maine’s Acadia National Park.

“We had an out,” Raffel recalled. “If
either of us had a terrible experience,
we could back out.”
That wasn’t needed. Instead, they
extended their time together — after
kicking it off with an unplanned first
meeting for Raffel with Applebaum’s
parents when she forgot a cooler of
food at their house.

“We joke that our first date was two
weeks long,” Raffel said.

Soon after, Applebaum met Raffel’s
family for Rosh Hashanah dinner. Then,
Raffel rented a home in Los Angeles
after Applebaum returned there.

With remote work the norm, and
a few months of dating now behind
them, they began considering living
and working elsewhere. They decided
See Weddings, page 34
Marcu Family Wedding
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