Updated matchmaking keeps tradition

Risa and Ken Sugarman recalled their experiences with JDate over coffee at a Starbucks in Framingham. The couple, married since October 2007, had their first date in a Starbucks. (Patricia McDonnell for The Boston Globe)

She had the same name as his twin sister, Risa, so that seemed a good omen. Plus, she was cute. He seemed to share her interests - movies, the importance of family. Their first date, at a Starbucks, went so well that when she checked her watch, she was astonished that three hours had flown by (especially since neither particularly likes Starbucks coffee.) Last October, a year and a half after that date, they wed.

The matchmaker who made them a match was the Internet.

Ken Sugarman, 35, and Risa, 34, hooked up through JDate, a behemoth in the burgeoning universe of religiously based, online dating sites. Founded in 1997, JDate has grown to 700,000 members worldwide - including 400,000 in the United States - who, under a variety of plans ($39.90 for a month's membership, $150 for six months, etc.) seek fellow Jews for romance and marriage, says Gail Laguna, a spokeswoman for the site.

"It's unusual - I would say it's the exception - if I'm not [marrying] a couple that's met on JDate," said the rabbi who officiated at the Sugarmans' wedding, Laurence Bazer of Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham. Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Bazer recently bought four six-month JDate memberships to give, free, to congregants. Two of the four have been scooped up, by people who, unlike the Sugarmans, prefer not to discuss it publicly, he said.

Bazer's not alone in perceiving JDate as a modern-day incubator for the Jewish community. His is one of a dozen temples and one Jewish center nationally that have bought bulk memberships, said Laguna.

What's religious about a dating service? "Jewish continuity is very important, for me as a rabbi and for my community," Bazer answered. "What [parents] want and hope for their children is that their children will meet other Jewish individuals and that we marry within our group, in hopes to preserve Jewish identity. . . . Couples talk to me, if they came from a strong Jewish family where holidays and family get-togethers always had a Jewish flavor - they want to preserve that. . . . I see it as an opportunity for Jewish people to meet other Jewish people - in a sense, to stack the deck."

Synagogues traditionally help match-make, he added. Within the Jewish community, however, pressure to marry a fellow Jew is a live wire, as Bazer acknowledges. Almost a third of married American Jews have a non-Jewish spouse - 30,000 such households in Greater Boston alone, according to Combined Jewish Philanthropies - a clear message from many young Jews that they want the intermarriage option. (Non-Jews may become JDate members as well.)

Since many of those mixed households are raising their children Jewish (Combined Jewish Philanthropies found almost 27,000 children in those local households), what's to worry about? "I always applaud and I totally support couples who are in an interfaith marriage," said Bazer. "My hope is always that they raise their child [Jewish], and they have a Jewish home." But as a Conservative rabbi, he doesn't perform such weddings, and "my first priority is, I would like to see Jewish people meet Jewish people."

Ken Sugarman got the gift of a JDate membership from his mother, now 60, who'd been "bugging me for a long time" to join. Sugarman had dated non-Jews but decided that a Jewish wife and family were important. His wife never dated a non-Jew. "All my grandparents were immigrants - from Russia, Romania, Latvia - and they came to this country as a result of some sort of persecution because they were a Jew," she said. "So in my mind, it's very important to carry on with Judaism."

The Net being the Net, folks are not always observant of the commandment that thou shalt not lie. Some make themselves sound more attractive, physically or otherwise, than they are. Nor does religious intent guarantee against meeting a few losers or enduring some disappointments. Risa Sugarman, an off-and-on JDate member for eight years before e-mailing her future husband, recalled one dud date at a Brookline sushi place: "He started playing with a tooth as he was eating. He said, 'Oh, I have a crown that's loose.' He was kind of lisping, and he kept fixing his crown during the date."

Yet neither she nor her husband had any apprehension about meeting people through the Net, despite the familiar, cautionary tales of unsavory prowlers online. Risa says she used her head in setting up dates, always meeting in public places.

As for the JDate-enthusiastic Bazer, religion was crucial to romance in his life, though at 45, he's mature enough to have experienced it the old-fashioned way. He met his future wife at a wedding he performed for a mutual friend.

Comments, questions, and story ideas may be sent to spiritual@globe.com.