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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