The Matchmaker’s Gift

Pushing boundaries and breaking through restrictive norms set by previous generations is practically a right of young adulthood. So is hearing a lecture about how such progress is only achieved on the backs of those who came before. It’s an endless cycle of that somehow results in moving society forward, to the point where many issues described by community elders can seem incomprehensible to the individuals they mentor. Finding the balance, with new trailblazers realizing what their ancestors went through and bringing those lessons forward is at the heart of Lydia Cohen Loigman’s historical novel The Matchmakers Gift. 

Many people see the word “matchmaker” in the title and assume that this is a story about boring old traditions. After all, matchmaking is thought to be an outdated relic of the past when marriage was based on business rather than love. Even the more generous among us see matchmakers as a fun but harmless spectacle, much like the spate of new streaming shows featuring matchmakers from various cultures. They certainly don’t see this as a male dominated profession that excluded women for a large portion of history. After all, the worlds most famous fictional Jewish matchmaker, Yenta, was a woman. What more proof do we need?

Readers will be interested to learn that the truth is far from what the movies and the reality shows have lead them to believe. Matchmaking used to be the provenance of men and intrusion of women on the scene was less than welcomed. Such is the plight of Sara, a young woman freshly immigrated to the lower east side who has been gifted with the ability to literally see the connections between matches. She wants to make these love matches, no matter how impossible they seem, and in doing so she faces the wrath of the male matchmaking establishment. These men do not appreciate the encroachment on their livelihood, forcing Sara to work underground and largely without pay or compensation. She does so with the help of her friendly local Rabbi. 

The story is told in two timelines, with the second featuring Sara’s granddaughter Abby. Abby is, of all things, a divorce lawyer. After Sara’s death Abby discovers Sarah’s journals and learns more about the fantastic stories her matchmaking grandmother used to tell her. She also discovers that Sara may not have been as retired as she claimed to be, and that she had some particular thoughts about who should take over the family business. Namely: Abby.

As Abby begins to follow the intuition about connections between couples that she has long suppressed during her parents messy divorce, she earns the ire of her boss who would rather she focused on giving clients what they ask for rather than what she intuits they might need for their relationships. One character goes so far as to call her a nudge. Anyone with any matchmaking experience will recognize this essential quality of a matchmaker. Sara possessed this tenacious perseverance too, finally culminating in a show down with the men that sought to exclude her from the field. 

Such tactics are hardly relics of the past. While matchmaking reality shows feature the profession as female dominated, there is a growing number of men seeking to control access to entire swaths of eligible singles in their communities where traditional matchmaking is still the norm. Anyone seeking to make a match within their community is expected to go through them. Their arguments are eerily familiar to those Sarah faced- men need this livelihood more, it is immodest for a woman to be setting up unmarried men, how can we trust a woman with something so important. Such ideas weaponize a process that should be about building connections. I would urge singles and matchmakers alike to instead take a book from Sarah’s page and leave the gender binary behind. Abby discovers that in her later life, Sarah made matches across all barriers. She worked with people of various religions, backgrounds, and sexualities. It was never about the money to her. It was about bringing together two people who were well suited to build a lasting relationship. 

Abby herself internalizes Sarah’s message by aiding some very unlikely pairings – nobody is more likely to be looking for love than the people in the waiting room of a divorce lawyers office. She accepts the mantle grudgingly at first, but then blossoms as she finds a way to merge it with her chosen profession. This is the stuff of true progress, and in that the novel achieves its purpose.

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