Hey, does anyone hear that drumroll? We are so excited to bring you a brand new podcast: The Yentas!
The Yentas isn’t your average dating podcast. On this podcast you get THREE powerhouse matchmakers — Aleeza Ben Shalom, Michal Naisteter and Danielle Selber — who address the challenges of dating in real time. Each episode is packed with the good stuff:
- The latest insights on dating trends and topics
- Actionable advice you can use right away
- Real-life experiences from people navigating dating right now
- Our clients’ success stories and challenges
- Special expert guests
Many years ago (shh, we are so not telling you how many years ago), Aleeza, Danielle and Michal met at a coffee shop in Philadelphia (RIP Trail’s End Cafe — we remember you fondly!) That meet-up turned into years of friendship, collaboration, and support as we each embarked on our shared mission of helping people find what and who they are looking for. Today, we’re all successful, professional matchmakers. We STILL meet, collaborate and support each other… and now, we can add podcast co-hosts to that list!
So what about the name of this podcast — The Yentas? That word, Yenta, can be a bit loaded, no? Maybe you saw Fiddler on the Roof, where the word is associated with being a busybody — someone who wants to make matches but doesn’t necessarily have your best interests at heart. To this day, the word carries a negative, gossipy connotation. So why did we decide to push against all that and reclaim Yenta as the namesake for our podcast? Listen to Episode 1 to find out!
And while we’re at it, we’ve also decided to coin yenta as a verb. This podcast is all about yenta-ing about dating, courtship, love and relationships! See what we did there?
The three of us matchmakers also have something else in common: we all got our start through the Tribe 12 Fellowship, Tribe 12’s accelerator for entrepreneurs in the Jewish community (psst… if you’re in Philly, you should definitely come to Launch Night to meet this year’s fellows — Aleeza herself is the emcee and keynote speaker!) Danielle was a Fellow in the very first class way back in 2011. Aleeza became a Fellow in 2013, the same year Danielle joined the Tribe 12 staff and ran the Fellowship (meta, right?) Michal rounded out the crew, becoming a Fellow in 2020.
We’re so grateful to our experiences in the Tribe 12 Fellowship and so excited to present this podcast as a limited series in collaboration with Tribe 12. A big thank you to our friend and former Tribe 12 staff member Ross Weisman for editing and producing our episodes.
Consider this podcast an invitation to that weekly chat at the coffee shop we started all those years ago. Come on in, take a seat! We can’t wait to yenta with you.
Listen or download the first episode now or subscribe on Spotify, I Heart Radio or Amazon Music!
