Now We Meet

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Where, when and by whom young adults link up is as random
and unscientific as picking a person out of a crowd.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN

StaffWriter

IVIT e meet in the most
unlikely places, some-
times in the last place
we'd expect. But by far,
the majority of young, Jewish couples
in metro Detroit met through people
they know: friends, family, co-workers,
acquaintances. Here's a re-enactment of
how five Jewish Detroit couples met.
Michael Tauber and Jodi Little

Dating 3 1/2 years, Tauber and
Little met in the B'nai B'rith
Leadership Network's bowling league
— across a crowded room.
"It was funny because the first time I
think I really saw her and asked about
her, I was at one end of the bowling
alley and she was at the other end.
B'nai B'rith was having its 150th
anniversary, and there was a dance. I
invited her to the dance with me."
Tamara and Isaac Kolton

Typical summer pickup. Well, not
really. They met by the JCC pool at a
singles barbecue.
With hundreds of Americans there,
"Isaac was the only Israeli. His friend
had pushed him out of the door, made
him go. My friend's parents are Israeli,
and she knew him, started to speak
with him in Hebrew. I'd been watching

10/10

1997

70

Howard and Karen Rosenberg
Across a crowded synagogue?
That's exactly how it happened for
this pair, who met at Adat Shalom
Synagogue's Young Adult Shabbat
Service.
It's the old cliche: when you least
expect it ... they did the blind dating
thing to the Nth degree, but found
their beshert at shul, Dec. 15, 1995.
He says he saw her in services, doing
a head count to see how many people
attended that month. She says she
saw him when she was in front of the
crowd, doing part of the service.
"Cranky, tired, disheveled" and
hoping to go straight home, she
changed her plans to spend much of
the night talking to him. A Toronto
native, he was in town by chance, vis-
iting law school friends from
Windsor who towed him to the YASS service.
After services, when everyone was socializing, she tried to make her way
over to meet him, but kept getting stopped by friends. He wanted to meet
her, too, but saw how busy she was and figured it was a lost cause.
Lucky for them, she finally made her way across the room. He called a
month later, kicking off a back-and-forth relationship which culminated in
their Oct. 13, 1996 wedding.

him the whole night."
When Tamara opened her mouth,
he was floored at her fluency. "He did-
n't know I speak Hebrew." They had
both graduated from Hebrew
University with the same degree. "He
asked me out, I said no, I was there to
meet an American. I had only dated
Israelis, never an American, wanted to
meet an American boy from West
Bloomfield."
But when he called, she caved. "The
first date I was still ambivalent and pro-
tective. I told him I'm committed to
living here, he'd been here for five
years. That was it, it was immediate.
We signed a year lease on an apartment
three weeks later."
Met July of 1994, married Feb. 9,
1996.

Jeff Cymerint and Deborah Soltz
They met through mutual friends,
although they refused to be fixed up
with each other. Says Soltz: "He had
been dating and dating and dating,
couldn't find the right one, he'd had it.
He just decided he wasn't ready at that

really well, and two days later he called
and asked me out for the following
Saturday, and we had a 14-hour date."
Getting married Nov. 30.

David Kreis and Susie Blatt
"We met through a mutual friend
who basically tried to set us up for at
least six months," says Kreis. "But both
of us didn't value our mutual friend's
taste so much. We kept saying no."
Then they ran into each other at the \I
bar one night, the Landshark in East
Lansing. The rest is history. ❑

*-Ewlemmoc,

point to go out there and be rejected
again."
Of course, she didn't want to be
fixed up either.

esitai; Oct.
Jewish .Professional Sin co e
t Muddee Waters. 7:30 p.m.

"Both of us agreed to go out with
our two friends because I hung out
with them a lot and he hung out with
them a lot, and they tricked us. They
said, 'Let's not fix you guys up. Let's
just go out the four of us, and at best
maybe the two of you will become
friends, then we can do things as a
group.' We were able to live with that,
the fact that it wasn't a date."
A Chinese dinner and movie later
and they were a pair. "We hit it off

avid, (248) 398-937 •