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Background on cHupaHelper’s originator, Dr. Bert Miller
In 1990, Dr. Bert Miller, an activist in Baltimore’s Jewish community started two not-for- profit Jewish matchmaking services, one called cHupaHelper and one called Frum-Phile. His unparalleled record of volunteerism within Baltimore’s Jewish community includes the conception, construction and management of the city Eruv and many other projects. Also, he organized the distribution of hundreds of highest-rated bike helmets, discounted 50% off the list price, to adults and children in Baltimore. Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, a prominent Baltimore rabbi once wrote, sponsoring two projects to aid poor families, ... Dr. Miller does all of this as a volunteer ... Among the nearly 2000 households in Baltimore’s Orthodox community, I believe there is no person who has initiated and completed more substantial community projects than Dr. Bert Miller. No one comes close to his level of community involvement and success. Dr. Bert Miller was my first choice and the first choice of my synagogue board to develop and direct the citizen’s patrol that I advocated.”
History and development of cHupaHelper
In 1988, after a 21-year marriage, he found himself single again with a desire to remarry and hopefully have more children. In his search, he met with many amateur and professional matchmakers and described himself and the type of person he wanted to marry. Often, they arranged dates with very nice women who were a mismatch for his specifications and requirements. Many singles he met described similar experiences. Single women, in particular, bemoaned the fact that they were unable to exercise much initiative in the matchmaking process. An inveterate problem solver, Dr. Miller devoted himself to the task of designing a better “spouse trap.” cHupaHelper and Frum-Phile were born. It was Dr. Miller who, in 1990, designed and pioneered the do-it-yourself, one-way blind matchmaking that just about all the systems use today. Dr. Miller collected paper resumes from participating singles, photocopied them and distributed them to his nearly 100 volunteer representatives across North America. The identity of a participating single was protected because he/she was uniquely identified only by his/her first name, telephone area code and date of birth. Singles were anonymous to everyone except Dr. Miller and their personal representative. Working with the famous Project Genesis, Dr. Miller has now adapted his successful program to the internet.
Description of the cHupaHelper system
As you would expect, the sample resume of cHupaHelper preserves a client’s anonymity. Since level of religious observance is important in every Jewish match, self-descriptive labels such as “unaffiliated,” “liberal,” “traditional,” or “orthodox” are commonly used but are imprecise. In contrast, the cHupaHelper form provides precision because it focuses on specific religious behaviors. The on-line resume with its accurate self-description, shopping list of specifics and list of “intolerables” is more efficient than the approaches of other online services.
Our resume form has gone through many revisions in response to the critical input sought and received from many singles, marrieds, matchmakers, and rabbis from across the Jewish spectrum. Appreciate that no item on the form is judgmental in any way. Level or style of Jewish observance is an essential consideration in any Jewish match. Therefore, items relating to Jewish religious observance such as kosher practices and synagogue attendance are included only to indicate religious compatibility – not to denigrate those less observant. Our goal is to serve the entire Jewish singles community – traditional and non-traditional. Regardless of your Jewish orientation, the cHupaHelper program will facilitate careful, serious consideration of you as a spouse by other Jewish singles.
Suppose, for example that “Reuben,” an engineer from New Jersey, finds the resume of “Deborah.” Her telephone area code of 718 reveals that she lives in either Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island or the Bronx. “On paper,” Deborah matches the type of person Reuben is looking for and he believes that he matches the type of person she is seeking. He proceeds by telephoning her personal reference/representative listed on the form, in this example Mrs. Sara Weinstein, Deborah’s married sister. He introduces himself on the phone, expresses interest in finding out more about Deborah and meeting her. He also describes himself. Sara may request that Reuben mail or email her a copy of Reuben’s resume. Mrs. Weinstein may ask to meet Reuben.
Deborah may be “seeing someone,” be not interested or be interested. If she is interested, she may call Reuben’s reference(s) and/or his rabbi for more information. If she believes that the match has potential, she can ask her personal representative to have Reuben call her. This scenario could also be repeated in reverse at Deborah’s initiative.
Some receiving singles prefer to have the initiating single contact them directly using email. However, cHupaHelper strongly advises that the initiating single be required to speak on the phone with the receiving single’s personal representative. This should be a reliable, mature person who knows the single well such as a rabbi, mentor, sibling, aunt, friend, etc. If your situation is such that no person is available to handle inquiries about you, then you may elect to use your cHupaHelper email address to receive these inquiries. Email is quick and convenient but it denies the receiving party and his/her personal representative the opportunity to form an impression about the sociability of the initiating single. Your marriage is not going to be an “emarriage” so avoid relying on “email” to form impressions of those singles interested in contacting you.
A Religious Note
cHupaHelper shares Rabbi Yitzchak Greenberg’s vision of a unified Jewish people able to marry one another. We also share his fear that trends toward disunity are growing stronger – an alarming number of children being raised as Jews today will not be able to marry other Jews tomorrow. For centuries, Jews followed the same basic practices in marriage, divorce and conversion. Orthodox Jewry still follows these laws. However, Conservative, Reform and Reconstruction have different philosophies and approaches. Many non-traditional Jews, however, follow traditional practices in marriage and conversion to avoid limiting the marriage choices of their unborn children. For example, although many Reform rabbis accept the concept of “Patrilineal Descent,” traditional rabbis do not. Therefore, a Reform Jewish man who marries an non-Jewish woman will have his children accepted as Jewish by some Jews but not by others. Further, some liberal rabbis and cantors will officiate at the remarriage of a woman who has not received a Jewish divorce from her first husband – all children of this second marriage will be considered illegitimate by traditional rabbis.
Clearly then, divorce and conversion in one’s life are complicating factors in traditional marriages. For more information on this topic, consult Rabbi Maurice Lamm’s book, The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage, or discuss it with your rabbi. One last word of advice-we do not and cannot verify any information appearing on the resume forms submitted by participating singles, matchmaking and mentors in cHupaHelper. We implicitly and explicitly serve only as a medium through which persons claiming to be Jewish are encouraged to offer information about themselves. The ultimate and sole responsibility for determining the suitability of a person for dating and marriage is your own. Your submission of any future registration fee and/or your examination of or use of the resume data and other data provided by cHupaHelper will attest that you accept this full responsibility.
It is clearly understood and agreed that cHupaHelper assumes no liability for the accuracy and completeness of the data supplied by participants in the program.
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