In the middle of June, Israelis were terrified. Regular daily missile attacks from Iran sent everyone running to bomb shelters and safe rooms. The fact that so many Israelis lost their homes, and some even their lives, made the situation that much more terrifying.
Jerusalem was no exception, with sirens waking locals up in the middle of the night in what is normally a city safe from threats.
But cause for joy and celebration can bloom even in the midst of such peril, with a Jerusalemite and a resident of nearby Efrat getting engaged. For them, the booms of missile interceptions might as well have been celebratory fireworks – even if the day of their engagement was one of the few during the 12-day war without any sirens waking up the Jerusalem area in the middle of the night.
This is the love story of Aliza Teplitsky and Rabbi Leo Dee. It is a journey from sorrow to joy, of happy surprises, and of the start of a bright future.
Each of them had their own personal journey to reach this new beginning, which they shared with In Jerusalem.
For Teplitsky, it was the culmination of years of being involved in the Orthodox dating scene.
“Dating can be extremely difficult on many levels,” she told In Jerusalem. “Whether it’s from shadhanim [matchmakers] who are just setting you up because you’re a female and he’s a male, or whether it’s just these crazy dates and these crazy stories where you meet people.”
This includes writing and submitting countless dating profiles and matchmaking resumes. As if just a picture and some text written on a page or screen are enough to give a good impression about someone.
The new fiancée certainly didn’t think so.
“I tried to say yes to [meet] most of them because it’s really hard to tell from a profile who a person is,” she explained. “Only from a phone call or even a first date or two or three can you really start getting to understand that.”
She refuses, on principle, to write a shidduch [matchmaking] resume. “And I refuse, on principle, to read it – because I believe you can’t summarize a person in a few paragraphs, or in any number of paragraphs.” [Note: This article is an attempt at summarizing their love story in a number of paragraphs.]
Still, going on dates wasn’t always just about her.
“When I went on dates, I didn’t try to just think about myself,” Teplitsky explained. “I tried to think about my friends as well. If these men weren’t meant for me, maybe they’d be good for somebody else. I believe that we all have a role in helping one another find the right person.”
Finding Mr. Right
That right person for Teplitsky turned out to be Rabbi Leo Dee. He had a very different story – and a well-known one.
Dee was married for many years to Lucy, with whom he had five children. But that life ended on April 7, 2023, when Lucy and their daughters Maia and Rina were murdered in a terrorist attack.
It was not until a year later that he decided to try to find someone else. As he wrote in an op-ed for the Jewish Chronicle, it was on the first Shabbat he was alone since the attack – and indeed, the first Shabbat he was alone in 30 years.
That decision brought him into the world of shidduchim. Like many others, he soon found himself struggling in the harsh and difficult dating scene, going on dozens of dates without any success.
Then, he and Teplitsky met. The magical service that made this possible? A Facebook group called Points of Contact.
“They’re a matchmaking service for English speakers,” Dee explained.
He was a bit shocked by the trend of writing shidduch resumes, as this wasn’t a common practice 30 years ago. And like his new fiancée, he wasn’t a big fan of it.
“Words do not describe a person, so I think it’s a waste of time,” he said. “I mean, I think you can know a few things you want to know about the person that are probably important, but that you can write in about 10 words. The rest of it, frankly, I wouldn’t bother with because if you think it’s worth meeting the person, then you should discover it at the meeting.”
Still, it was Points of Contact that brought them to each other, and a connection quickly formed.
Finding Ms. Right
For Dee, he was drawn to Teplitsky’s positivity.
“She’s very positive about life,” he said. “She’s had a long journey. But she is extremely, optimistic, hopeful, and she is very comfortable with her married friends and their kids. And I think that’s an amazing quality in someone.”
She already knew about him, both the gist of his story and loss, as well as his reputation of being a person of good character.
“So for me, that was already check No. 1,” she said. “Worth a phone call, and worth a first date.”
That first date was at a tapas bar (which serves small, shareable dishes) near the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens; and that itself was the result of a humorous miscommunication.
“Leo said to me on the phone that we should just go for a small bite to eat,” Teplitsky recounted. “I’m a pretty literal person, so I chose a place that has these teeny little plates and teeny little portions. He said, ‘Oh, these dishes are really small,’ and I said, ‘You said you wanted just a small bite!’”
With that amusing mix-up out of the way, the two found their first date going well.
“What was surprising to me on our first date was that he asked me questions,” Teplitsky recounted. “I think he was the first person in 20 years who ever asked me any questions on a first date. He seemed to really want to get to know me, and gave me space to be who I was.”
In addition, she also felt that Dee was optimistic and a positive person.
“He’s an amazing person who always chooses life and happiness,” she said with a happy smile as she looked at her fiancé, “and he just brings a lot of that optimism to my life – even though he thinks it comes from me.”
It wasn’t about the trauma
Dee was also in for pleasant surprises.
“I went on about 30 dates, and many of the women wanted to talk about their trauma,” he said. “While I’m very qualified to talk about trauma, I realized with Aliza that we didn’t talk about trauma for the first 10 dates, and she doesn’t follow me on Facebook, so she didn’t know anything I’ve written or said. She knew vaguely who I was, but she wasn’t interested in me as a trauma specialist. It was very refreshing to be able to have someone who I just talk about regular things and life with, and that was unique.”
It wasn’t long before it became apparent that this was something special.
“I would say we knew fairly early on that this was something serious and different from anything else I had been involved in,” Teplitsky said. “For me, I think the turning point was before one of our dates: I was having a hard time, and I spoke to my shadhanit (matchmaker). I said we were going on this date, and I wanted to know if this was going to be it. And she said to me, ‘Okay, so put everything on the table.’ And at the time, I was going over it in my head, like, is this what I want? Is this not what I want? And then we went out, and I kind of threw everything at him.”
Clearly, Dee was not put off by this.
“That was the first time that I felt like I was seen and allowed to be me,” she continued. “And that was, for me, a point where I thought, ‘Okay, I’m in this now.’”
Dee elaborated on his feelings about why the two of them complement each other so well.
“In the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer explains the description of a wife. One explanation he gives is that ‘If you merit her, she’s against you. She argues with you. If you don’t merit her, then she hits you.’
“I think this is a very interesting analysis because a wife, a partner, should be someone who can stand up to you and argue with you, and can bring the best out of you. And I think that a lot of the time, we’re looking for people who agree with us. But actually, that’s not really what life partners are meant to be.”
A family affair
Considering how well the relationship was progressing, it was only a matter of time before a proposal was going to happen. Naturally, Dee had come up with a way to properly pop the question.
“I had a plan, and I shared it with my kids,” he recounted. “They said, ‘Absolutely no way. We’ll organize it for you.’ My two daughters literally planned it together. They prepared a fruit platter and chocolates and brought tables, a carpet, and candles to the Ari Fuld lookout in Gush Etzion.”
Once his daughters gave the signal that everything was good to go, the plan went into action.
“I brought Aliza, and there was music playing, and I proposed to her,” he said. “Twenty minutes later, they [his children] turned up to take pictures. That, apparently, is how you do it today if you’re in your 20s.”
“Oh, but they were very, very specific that we couldn’t take a selfie,” Teplitsky added. “It had to be a proper picture that they had to take. We couldn’t just take it ourselves. The whole thing was very sweet and very thoughtful.”
But the Dees weren’t done just yet.
“I planned with Aliza’s parents that as a surprise, I would take her there just to announce it to them,” the newly engaged man said. “Already, they had her sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews, and my kids were all waiting there by the time we got there. So it was a surprise at the time.”
The fact that the proposal took place in the middle of 12 days of war with Iran may seem either jarring or inspirational, depending on how you look at it. But without the war with Iran happening, the proposal wouldn’t have happened then at all.
“I was actually supposed to be in Canada,” Dee explained. “I was supposed to be spending two weeks, leaving that day. And it was canceled because of the matzav [situation].” At this, Dee turned his head to look at his fiancée with a lovestruck smile. “But I still had my own Canadian encounter, in any case.”
Dee had actually been mulling over whether to propose before leaving for Canada or after. “Hashem sort of sorted that out for me by canceling the trip,” he said with a chuckle.
“The crazy thing was, it was the Thursday after [the war started on Friday, June 13], and it was the only night that we weren’t woken up by sirens the entire two weeks,” Teplitsky said. “I said that we brought enough love and light into the world that we didn’t need extra fireworks.”
Love grown from tragedy
Still, she wasn’t completely surprised.
“I kind of had an idea,” she said. “I had asked him earlier in the week for a timeline, and he said shorter than I expected.” At this, she laughed as she looked at Dee with adoration in her eyes. “No one can ever surprise me, and Leo has done it over and over again, which is incredibly impressive.”
But for her, she said, the most touching part of it was the fact that the kids were involved. “And what Leo didn’t mention is that they also printed pictures of us from our dates over the past few months, which was just so thoughtful. It felt to me like there was an acceptance that this was okay.”
Describing the progression of it and the way it worked out, she said, “It was the two of us for 15 minutes, which was symbolic of our relationship. And then the five of us when the kids came to give hugs and to take pictures. And when our two families got to meet – it was just perfect.”
While they have only just got engaged, this couple clearly knows exactly what they are doing.
“We have a wedding date at the end of August,” the soon-to-be bride said. “We have a venue and a band already.”
In Jerusalem asked the couple what it was like to have love grow from tragedy and in the middle of a war, and what love means to each of them.
“I think love is to find someone that you are just happy spending every moment with,” Dee said. “And maybe it’s easier to see it in the quiet moments of the restrictions of this war: the quiet moments of being cut out of work and from synagogue and everything else.”
“I guess I would say love is much bigger than this,” Teplitsky said. “But I think, part of finding each other, for me, was a lot about growth and respect and exploration. I also couldn’t even imagine the number of responses that we got and the joy that we brought to other people. I’m thrilled – and Leo’s very happy, as far as I can tell.”
They were able to bring some joy to others and spread some love, she said, “which is what we all need right now. I think we all need patience, kindness, love, and respect. And if we can continue that and remember it while the rest of the world is against us, then we’ll be much better people for it.”