ROSH HASHANAH 5785 • L’CHAIM®
Matchmaker Ruth Epstein led 104 couples to the chuppah
Marriage is one of Judaism’s highest ideals. Throughout the ages, Jews have sought help in finding their mates. Somewhere between Fiddler on the Roof’s Yenta and the computerized algorithms of JDate and Tinder, there was the gentle and intuitive matchmaking prowess of a Ruth Epstein.
From 1981 to 2004, Epstein, through her matchmaking service, Introductions by Ruth, brought 104 couples to the chuppah.
Epstein, who was born in Prague and came to the US at the age of 10, is now 93 and lives in a retirement community in southeast Denver. A homemaker most of her adult life, Epstein enjoyed casually introducing single Jewish people to each other. In 1981, her daughter Becky brought home two friends, Bob Pailet and Don Skupsky with whom she played tennis.
“Bob said to me, ‘Ruth, you should start a dating service.’ I don’t know how he knew that, but he thought I would be a natural.”
Epstein took Pailet’s advice and formally started Introductions by Ruth. By the way, Epstein introduced Bob Pailet to Cindy Richman, who have been married 38 years now. She also introduced Skupsky to his now wife Lorraine.
Epstein advertised her startup in the Intermountain Jewish News. “Right away, I got people, so I thank the Jewish News for sending me some of my first clients.”
Young men and women would come to Epstein’s Candlewyck condo with a $24 check for six months of her services, which included access to her book of dating prospects.
Each page of the book contained information about the prospects — their background, occupation, interests and the all-important photo.
“I wanted them to bring in a picture of themselves. I found out very quickly that women made themselves look younger, and the men tried to make themselves look taller, so I said, ‘This won’t do. I’d better take my own pictures, so I bought a Polaroid and every time they came in, I took a Poloroid picture of them, so I knew I had a recent picture.”
Epstein had a way with people and was able to get to know them by asking questions and really listening. She became a good judge of who could be compatible with whom. She also imagined how the couples she fixed up would look like together.
Sometimes Epstein got calls from mothers, but usually it was the girls who called.
She recalls there were a few times when men came in with their mothers. “I thought that didn’t seem right, but I did talk to them and their mothers answered. I thought, ‘I don’t think this would be a good match for anybody.’”
There were times when Epstein dispensed advice to singles about improving their appearance so as to be more attractive to the opposite sex. A man once came to her missing two teeth in the front. She told him he needed to think about getting a bridge or replacement teeth. “I said, ‘Do that and come back.”
A couple of times when young women would come, “I opened the door and they said they were kind of shocked. They were expected an older lady with a babushka,” Epstein laughs.
“No, I’m not Yenta. I’m a modern-day matchmaker,” she would tell them.
Epstein received a lot of calls from non-Jewish women who wanted to marry Jewish men. “My response was that this is a Jewish dating service and I would not compromise on that, and I wished them well.”
Epstein did not arrange the first dates. “I always had the men call the women. I was very old fashioned. And they didn’t mind. After they knew each other, they called each other, of course, but the men had to initiate the call.”
Epstein admits she always wondered how the first dates were going. I hoped they would call me and give a report, but very few did.”
When Epstein started Introductions by Ruth, she was recently divorced after 28 years of marriage. She raised four children and now has six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
She was an active member of Rodef Shalom, where she was the president of the sisterhood and served on many committees. She was president of the Denver Hadassah chapter and a member of NCJW.
Rodef Shalom recently honored her on her 93rd birthday.
These days she keeps busy with her friends, children, grandchildren and nieces and nephews. “I make sure I see them a lot. I think they like me and I love them!”
Ruth Epstein retired right around the time that online dating services were starting. She didn’t have a computer and she was not interested in going that route. By the time she retired, she was charging only $120 for six months. “It wasn’t a lucrative business, but I loved it.”
When asked what she thinks of online dating services such as JDate, she replies, “Whatever works.”
Bob and Cindy Pailet have remained close with Epstein through the years. Of her matchmaking legacy, they use descriptors such as “insightful, diplomatic and very wise.”
Over Epstein’s 23 years as Denver’s Jewish matchmaker, 1,000 men and women came through her door looking to marry someone Jewish. Of those 1,000, 208 found their “bashert” — the one they felt they were destined to marry. That’s a 21% success rate, compared to JDates 19.1%. That’s 104 new Jewish families.
“It was the best time in my life seeing couples getting together and getting married.”
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