After nearly a decade, the Meet Your Match program is disbanding, its chair, Sondra Berk, has informed the HERITAGE.  Operated for two years by Miriam Katzin, the communal Jewish matchmaking service later became known as "Rebbitzin's Friends" in honor of Deborah Levin, the wife of Rabbi Moshe Levin of Congregation Beth El.  About four years ago, the program came under the sponsorship of Jewish Family Service, then transferred about 18 months ago to the auspices of the Lawrence Family JCC.

At its height, Meet Your Match had approximately 30 women who served as matchmakers to single Jewish persons throughout San Diego County.  In that format, according to Berk, each matchmaker had a number of clients-both men and women-and would meet with the other matchmakers so they could evaluate the suitability of each other's clients to be paired with theirs.

But this hands-on approach to matchmaking was time-consuming, and meanwhile Jewish internet dating services were springing up, offering clients a far larger inventory of potential mates.  After transferring to the auspices of the Lawrence Family JCC, the group operated a FasTrack dating program-in which approximately ten men and ten women-would have timed seven-minute conversations with each other, then write down which of the people they met they would like to meet again.  In the event that two people put each other's names down, they were given each other's phone numbers. 

Another program, Connexions,  was planned to expose singles to photographs and resumes of potential partners on the internet, but it was never launched. The trend toward cyber-speed in matchmaking left the women who had served as matchmakers feeling there no longer was a role for them, Berk said.  Berk, Bryna Haber, Rosalind Dermer and Ruth Gold met with the Lawrence Family JCC's  top executives, Mike Cohen and Nate Stein, on Friday, Oct. 19th.  It was decided that should the JCC desire,  it would be free to move forward with the program on its own. 

Cohen, the JCC's executive director, later told HERITAGE that the center planned to continue under auspices of the JCC's Singles Department  the FasTrack dating program. That program would complement the Dinner for Eight which already is supervised by the Singles Department.

"The JCC has a long and successful history in providing quality programs to single adults and will expand its service programs," Cohen said. - Donald H. Harrison