Mandy Patinkin is taking on a new role — shadchan, or matchmaker.
That’s right, the Tony-award winning actor and Jewish dad is breaking into the Jewish matchmaking business, and he’s doing it in an awe-inspiring way, complete with a personal rendition of the classic “Fiddler on the Roof” song, “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.”
“Date our friend!” Patinkin posted on his social media accounts, along with a six-minute video of said friend: musician, pizza shop owner and apparent pilot Ilan Bachrach. “I’m a Jew,” he says in the video. “I guess you should know that. Some people don’t like that.” (We are not those people, obviously!)
The matchmaking video appears to have been pre-planned and at least loosely scripted. It is filmed, as is customarily done on Patinkin’s Instagram, by his son, Gideon, in his parents’ upstate New York home.
The video opens with Bachrach playing the piano; he then gets up and starts his elevator dating pitch. “Hey, how are you doing? My name is Ilan, I’m playing the piano here… Anyway, I’m looking for a wife,” he begins, but he is quickly interrupted by Patinkin’s hearty laughter and some off-screen heckling.
“I’m a guy, in my late 30s, I live in High Falls, New York,” where he owns a house, he says, but he clarifies that he’s willing to move back to the city — maybe — for the perfect girl, or even split their time between the two locations.
Date our friend!
Hanging out with Ilan on a rainy morning. He’s the best. If interested email him at yeshello.ilan@gmail.com (special email just for this) or DM him @ZZZLLL#truelove #matchmaking #matchmaker #mawwage #findIlanlove #fallinlove pic.twitter.com/6vnjqvoU9T
— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy) October 27, 2021
When Gideon asks Bachrach what he’s into, he’s interrupted once more by a member of the Patinkin family — this time, it’s Becky the (davening) dog, who jumps on his shoulders for a doggy hug. “I’m into dogs,” Bachrach says (thanks for the reminder, Becky!), “and babies.”
“I started a summer camp one time,” he says, earning lots more Jewish points from us. “I opened a pizzeria here with some of my best friends, it’s called Ollie’s.”
“I like Mandy,” he adds, as Patinkin walks up to him and gives him a warm hug. It’s a very good hug. Apparently, both of these men are very good at hugs!
After detailing other things that he likes (art, movies, and, just maybe, hiking — “hiking, I hear, is a thing that I should like, I’ll hike with you,” he tells the camera, somewhat unconvincingly), Kathryn Grody, Patinkin’s spouse and the not-so-secret star of the Patinkin family show, breaks into her own little ad copy for their single friend.
“I think he’s a warm male, he doesn’t dominate the conversation,” she explains. “He’s an artist, with an artist sensibility, makes gorgeous homes…. and he has business sense!” This, Grody correctly observes, can be rare for creative types.
“Since meeting this person, from the very first moment, I have been thinking about what fabulous female I can find for him,” Grody adds, revealing she, too, is susceptible to the primal Jewish mother urge to matchmake.
“If you’re with the wrong person… get the fuck out and go be with this guy!” Patinkin concurs, and then breaks into a version of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” for which he improvises a topical verse:
“With Kathryn, Mandy and Ilan/
We’ll take you on hikes all around/
And Becky she loves to be with you/
She’s everything that you could ever dream of.”
(Gideon later clarifies that, if you date their pal, it is not likely you will do much hiking with Patinkin, since both men are fairly private people. “If you get married it will be six years before you even see Mandy and Kathryn,” he explains. So yes, Ilan is great, but he cannot be used to take hikes with the Patinkins!)
We are all taken here at Team Kveller, but we like to enable matchmaking whenever we can. So, we did some digging into Bachrach’s Instagram, and here are some things we discovered: he can fly planes, he makes good Jewish jokes, he buys shmura matzah (but eats pepperoni pizza!), he goes through a lot of ballet shoes on in Nature Theater of Oklahoma, he likes pets and, indeed, babies, as he is an uncle. And yes, his house does look very noice!
Also, as the Patinkins explain in the caption to the video, Bachrach is ready to settle down and start a family — so you know he’s looking for something serious.
As Patinkin says at the end of this chaotic (but chaotic in a good way) video: “If you don’t find this guy, you’re nuts!” Though obviously, we all have our tastes and particularities — Jewish mom Alex Borstein commented on the post saying Ilan is, unfortunately, “too young” for her (but agreed he is adorable!).
Still, if Ilan catches your fancy — and having a Mandy Patinkin-approved match is important to you (it’s important to us!) — you can send him an email at yehello.ilan@gmail.com. We can only assume this inbox is already starting to get unmanageable — but hey, shoot your shot, ladies! We sincerely hope Patinkin continues his matchmaking efforts.
And hey, Mandy, if you’re looking for a matchmaking partner, may we suggest our sister site, Alma and their excellent Jewish classifieds?
