Kesher Networks has become the first stop for families challenged by medical issues in shidduchim

What are health-compromised young men and women to do when they hit marriageable age but find all roads to their future blocked? What if there were a shidduch initiative resting on a platform of medically trained shadchanim and a massive database of boys and girls with every type of medical condition, opening up shidduch possibilities they would never have known about otherwise?

This past Chol Hamoed Succos, Naftali*, who lives in Jerusalem and is the father of a large family, decided to daven Shacharis at the Churvah shul in the Old City where his longtime friend, Rav Eliyahu Zilberman, is the shul rav. Naftali had a lot to pray for: His daughter Penina, a bright, outgoing girl who at age 21 had finished seminary with flying colors, had been born with a disability that left her paralyzed from the waist down. How do you find a shidduch for a girl who is typical in every way except that she’s confined to a wheelchair?

When the minyan finished, Rav Zilberman approached Naftali to wish him a gut moed, and he had something else to tell him as well.

“You know who’s here this morning?” Rav Zilberman said. “Rabbi Stein is here for Yom Tov from the US. His wife, Libby, is a relative of ours, and she does shidduchim for young people with disabilities. Maybe she can help you out.”

When Naftali, a man who lives with simple emunah, called Libby, she told him that it would be helpful if she could meet his daughter face to face. Penina promptly took a cab to Libby’s hotel, they had a brief meeting, and right after Yom Tov, Libby and her husband returned to their home in Lakewood.

Libby brought up Penina’s name at her next meeting of Kesher Networks, a new shidduch initiative under the umbrella of Bonei Olam, a New York-based worldwide organization that assists Jewish couples experiencing infertility. While Bonei Olam deals primarily with fertility issues, solutions to those complications often intersect with new developments in genetic research that are able to affect pregnancy outcomes — those very same issues that can be a roadblock to shidduchim. Kesher Networks, for its part, rests on a platform of medically trained shadchanim and a massive database of boys and girls with every type of medical condition, accessing users from all over the world and opening up shidduch possibilities they would never have known about otherwise.

Another shadchan from the Kesher Networks group had an idea for Penina: Chezky, a boy from a European family who had made aliyah three years prior. Chezky was born with a genetic disorder that manifested in a certain physical impairment that had a 50 percent chance of being passed on to each of his offspring (and having healthy children would likely involve advanced technology). Despite this hurdle — and the fact that Chezky is still not fluent in Hebrew and Penina speaks no English or Yiddish — the two families considered the idea and the pair decided to meet.

Somehow, they figured out how to communicate, and after five dates, the shidduch was a wrap. A February wedding is on the calendar, and the couple now plans to live in Jerusalem.

“Of course, they’ll need a ground-floor apartment that’s wheelchair-accessible, and we’re lowering the kitchen counters and adapting the bathroom so that Penina can use them comfortably,” says Naftali. “But Penina is very independent — she’s always gotten around by herself — and Chezky is the same.”

Naftali says he and his wife never gave up hope. “We davened with tears, and we saw the yad Hashem. We never doubted that Penina would find her bashert.”

While Naftali exudes the pure faith of believing in a positive outcome, Libby says this shidduch is nothing short of miraculous. “What Naftali doesn’t know is that I have half a dozen girls with Penina’s condition here in the US, some of them not even wheelchair-bound, who have been waiting years for a suggestion. He and his daughter had exceptional mazel.”