Lynda Cohen Loigman believes in soulmates.
“I don’t think everybody has only one. I think there are some people in this world that you just really connect with,” she tells POPSUGAR.
“It doesn’t even have to be romantic. If you’re lucky in life, you have a couple different soulmates, whether they be romantic ...
...ones or platonic ones.” To Sara, matches are identifiable by thin golden lines that connect one soulmate to the other.
Her granddaughter, Abby, inherits this gift — though Abby, a jaded divorce lawyer without much faith in everlasting romance, tries to fight against it.
Loigman decided to drop the book she was working on at the moment, choosing instead to dive into the world of matchmaking.
“I feel like everybody in that moment just wanted to read a happy story, a story that was joyful,” Loigman says. “If you were ...
...an unmarried woman, you weren’t supposed to be alone with an unmarried man trying to find a match for him,” Loigman says.
“We were at such a disconnected time, we were all so isolated, and a story about a matchmaker is just by definition a story about connections, because that’s what they do. They make connections.”
Loigman, a writer of historical fiction, wanted to base her story in a specific time and place, so she chose the 1910s and 1920s, focusing on early Jewish immigrant communities in New York City’s Lower East Side.
“The article had this line that was, ‘At this wedding, the scent of roses and orange blossoms mingled with the odors of dried herring and pickles,'” she says.
“I sent it to my editor and I just said, ‘This is what I want my book to be. I want it to be roses and pickles. I want it to have the uplifting, joyful, romantic ...
...parts, but I want it to have the grit. I want all that Lower East Side history and grit to be represented too. Her research also led her to some surprises.
They weren’t all men by any means, but it was a business.
There was a lot of money involved.” She chose to center her book around Sara, a young woman who has several strikes against her as she pursues her calling as a matchmaker, and not only because of her gender.
Single and young, Sara finds herself facing legal threats from men who see her as a threat to their livelihoods.
It’s not as transactional as it was.” As matchmaking is alive and well in many modern Jewish communities, Netflix is taking note. In March, it announced it ...
...was producing a series called “Jewish Matchmaking.” “Will using the traditional practice of shidduch help them find their soulmate in today’s world?” ...
...the show’s tagline reads. In March, it announced it was producing a series called “Jewish Matchmaking.” “Will using the traditional practice of shidduch ...
...help them find their soulmate in today’s world?” the show’s tagline reads. The word shidduch refers to a match or marriage partner, but it ...
...also means “to rest” or “to experience tranquility,” according to the Jerusalem Post. The word shidduch refers to a match or marriage partner, but it ...
...also means “to rest” or “to experience tranquility,” according to the Jerusalem Post. Indeed, for Loigman, “The Matchmaker’s Gift” was meant to offer ...
...some tranquility and connection for readers in a time of need. Indeed, for Loigman, “The Matchmaker’s Gift” was meant to offer some tranquility and ...
...connection for readers in a time of need. She also wanted it to present a warmer kind of Jewish story at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise.