The real life Yente: jobless Fiddler on the Roof worker sets up blind date agency

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a… Matchmaker?

They say that life imitates art, and true to form one West End production assistant unexpectedly found herself in a starring role.

When the coronavirus pandemic forced theatres to close their doors, like many in the arts sector, Aimee Belchak lost her job.

Yet despite being more accustomed to working behind the scenes on the likes of musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, she used her experience on the show, as well as her innate talent for “networking” and old fashioned “intuition”, to establish the UK's first dating agency of its kind for young, single Jews.

She set up The A-gency, which offers only blind dates, in August. Since then she has organised hundreds of dates for millennials who have become “jaded” with dating apps.

“It’s really funny how this has all turned out,” Ms Belchak, 26, told The Telegraph. “I’m now basically playing Yente in real life. I’m having an interval in my theatre career due to Covid, but It’s so cool to be able to make such amazing things happen for other people and myself.

“It’s been really overwhelming, and people just love the blind aspect - it’s different and got a bit of Cilla Black vibes going on.”

Ms Belchak, of north London, believes she adds a touch of modernity to the classic Jewish matchmaking process - “like a traditional Yente with a twist”.

Yente is the elderly matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof, the musical set in Imperial Russia in the early 20th century ahead of the Tsar’s eviction of Jews from the fictional town of Anatevka.

The musical centres on the character of Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain Jewish traditions amid the threat of outside influences - a common enemy shared by that of Yente who is tasked with setting up wayward youngsters.

Traditional Jewish matchmakers, known as ‘shadchans’, do still exist in modern society. However they primarily serve the Orthodox community and are often seen as outdated by their more secular counterparts.

Ms Belchak, a theatre and performance graduate of the University of Leeds, who has also worked on the musicals School of Rock and Dreamgirls as well as Sir Tom Stoppard’s latest play, Leopoldstadt, believes her “blind dating USP” has taken off because millennials and Generation Z have become disillusioned with the more shallow aspects of dating apps, which require people to submit multiple photos.

Thanks to the pandemic her clients are looking for a human connection more than ever, and find a blind dating experience more fulfilling.

“The reason why I wanted to go down the blind route is because I just think we’ve all become so judgemental with social media,” she said. “Using dating apps is now just like shopping for a boyfriend. “We’ve all just become so jaded and fatigued by apps and researching everyone’s life history before we meet them. We obsess over minor details and over-analyse everything.

“So I thought I’d just remove that element altogether; there’s a gap in the market for blind dating of this kind.” “No one has ever done this before, and no one actually goes on blind dates,” she added.

“It’s hard to meet someone at the moment, and I knew it wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but that’s fine, I just don’t want to give people the option to say no to someone that could be a great match.”

The A-gency caters for singletons aged 22 to 36 based in London, and has continued to grow since it was set up, with 70 sign ups in August, 120 in September and 250 in October. However Ms Belchak hopes to continue expanding her business, and cater for LGBTQIA+ clients as well.

The A-gency requires each singleton to fill out an extensive sign-up form with details about  their personal, physical and religious specifications - as well as an option to list people they do not want to date.

However crucially only the matchmaker sees photographs of her clients. She books the date in her own name at a pub equidistant to both clients, and five minutes before, the attendees receive an email with the first name and mobile number of their match.

Naturally, Ms Belchak, who keeps all client data on a spreadsheet which is continually updated, has received some quite bizarre requests on the forms, including one client who specified not to be set up with anyone who has food allergies.

Another asked to avoid being paired with anyone who wears glasses, and someone else listed more than 50 names of people they did not want to be set up with. “That’s been quite hilarious - “I’m not God,” Ms Belchak said. “People write really interesting things, and clearly that person had a bad experience with food allergies.”

Many clients reported back saying they felt less shy from the blind matchmaking, or that it gave them the confidence to go on their first date since the breakdown of a relationship. One client, Daniel Ellis, a 28-year-old engineer, said he “signed up out of curiosity more than anything else”, but discovered it to be “a lot more fun than any dating app”.

Another client, Gabby, 22, a recent graduate, said that she signed up for a blind date “to try something new” and “to see what’s out there, without expecting a certain look or personality.” Both clients said they would definitely go blind dating again.

Yet despite setting up so many people, Ms Belchak is herself single, and admitted that she has not been on a date since setting up the agency.

“I want to meet someone and find my person,” she said. “I love connecting people, and I’m a bit of a networker, but I’m not that confident when it comes to dating. If a guy signed up and I thought he’d be a good match for me, I’d have to ask him out directly because it wouldn’t be blind for me. I hope I’m going to get good Karma from this and he will come when the time is right.”

Last week, Fiddler on the Roof won Best Musical Revival at the Olivier Awards. However until the theatres reopen, Ms Belchak said she will continue practicing her own Yente skills before she can return behind the scenes.