This ‘Jewish Matchmaking’ Star Just Got Engaged

By Evelyn Frick | Hey Alma via JTA

For Cindy Seni, the idea of getting engaged was surreal. “You go to all these weddings, you hear about all these things, but it happens to other people,” the star of “Jewish Matchmaking” told Hey Alma. “You never really feel like it’s gonna happen to you. Or at least I never felt that way.”

Well, it’s happening for her: This past July 3, her birthday, Seni and boyfriend Eldad Cohen got engaged at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. (She is now the second cast member of “Jewish Matchmaking” to become engaged.)

Fans of Netflix’s “Jewish Matchmaking” will recall the 29-year-old Jerusalemite for her intelligence, independence and zingy one-liners like, “No abs, no Cindy” and “Putting on tefillin is hot.” Her journey on the show didn’t include finding her partner. After two dates with Daniel, a 34-year-old tech engineer from Tel Aviv, she and matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom had a frank conversation about emotional baggage. Together, they concluded that Cindy hadn’t completely processed a breakup from her past, and that is the last viewers see of her.

Behind the scenes, however, a different story was playing out. In May 2022, while still filming for “Jewish Matchmaking,” Seni met Cohen through her job. (She works for Brothers for Life, an Israeli organization which supports injured veterans, and he is a “Brother.”) At first, the pair chatted on WhatsApp, but when Cohen was slow to ask her out, Seni “blew him off.”

Then one day, Cohen happened to come into the Brothers for Life office.

“And I’m like, ‘Oh damn. Oh, no. What have I done? He’s so good looking,’” Seni recalled.

Later, she and Cohen more fully reconnected during a Brothers for Life retreat in Eilat, where they talked the entire night. That wasn’t their first date, though.

“Our first official date was at the Kotel [Western Wall] at Selichot,” Seni explained.
Flash-forward to earlier this month, and Seni had an inkling that a proposal might be coming. “I had no idea but I kind of had an idea so I did my nails,” she said.
After a birthday spa day, arranged by Cohen, he suggested they head to the Kotel. Wanting to get out of the heat, Seni declined and the couple went back to her apartment where he popped the question.

“I just looked at him, blank faced. And I said, ‘Why didn’t we go to the Kotel?’ And he’s like, ‘That’s your yes?’ And I was like, ‘I have nothing to say right now.’ So we ended up going to the Kotel and he did the official thing. So it was nice and I got two proposals,” she explained.

Though Ben Shalom didn’t set the pair up, Seni said that the Jewish matchmaker still had an impact. At the beginning of their relationship, she was nervous that her boisterous personality was too different from Cohen’s, who is more easygoing. So she called up Ben Shalom.

“I told her that I didn’t know if I could speak to him about philosophy or French art and literature. He’s an Israeli and I’m a woman of the world, you know? And I love going to museums, and he hates museums,” Seni said.

She went on, “Aleeza said, ‘Do you absolutely need that in a partner? Or can you find that in someone else?’ Meaning, can you be fulfilled with going to a museum or talking about Baudelaire with like someone else? I thought about it for a second and was like, you know, I guess I don’t need it in a partner, it’s OK if I can speak with it [sic] with my sister or my friends.”

From then on, the relationship was smooth sailing.

Now, the couple will begin actually planning the wedding. For the bride-to-be’s part, she’s hoping to have a very small wedding, around 50 people, either on a beach or somewhere in Jerusalem. What’s definite, however, is that the couple wants to have a short engagement, with the wedding likely coming in the winter.

And if you’re wondering whether or not Cohen prays with tefillin, don’t worry, we made sure to ask that, too. Seni smiled, laughing, before responding, “Absolutely.”