The idea for The Jewish Dating Game came to Linnea Sage in the middle of the night. The New York City resident sought to fill two “voids” in her life: creativity and Jewish community.
The next day, she called a theater and got an opening for the first show four weeks later. It was a “sold-out success,” according to Sage.
The show will debut in Philadelphia at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on Feb. 14.
Launched in New York City in 2024, The Jewish Dating Game is a live matchmaking experience where singles blind date on stage. Sage hosts the shows, and her husband, Paul Skye Lehrman, is the director and producer. The two winning couples go on a dinner date at a partner restaurant, usually Jewish or Israeli.
Participants and audience members can mingle after the show to get to know one another.
“It’s always tied back to Jewish community,” Sage said. “The purpose of this show is to spread Jewish joy and to create a safe space for Jews to feel comfortable being publicly Jewish.”
Sage selects two Jewish main contestants pre-show to join her on stage, then chooses three potential matches for each contestant.
“Each individual ‘game,’ so to speak, is guided by Linnea hosting, but also incredibly intentional, curated questions that Linnea offers to the main contestant as a way to guide through the experience,” Lehrman said.
These “very useful questions” run the gamut from personality and individuality to what contestants are seeking for the future. Other questions may lead to cultural commonalities, such as “Who was your Jewish icon growing up?” or “If you could invent a Jewish superhero based on a Jewish fable, what would it be?”
“They’re making this dinner date without having seen each other, but it’s because the main contestant has found someone out of the three that they feel a real connection to,” Lehrman said.
The blind dating aspect removes any preconceived notions that someone may have based on appearance, according to Lehrman.
“That happens visually really quickly,” he said. “So, we have found that structuring in this way allows someone to get to know someone that they otherwise wouldn’t have given the time of day. It just creates an experience that is hard to replicate in real life.”
“We really want people to find love,” Sage said.
For many, it can be difficult to be authentic and honest in front of 100 people in a room, especially when it comes to something as vulnerable as love. So, the shows are never recorded or posted online.
“It’s so important to us that we preserve the privacy of those individuals on stage,” Lehrman said. “We want individuals to be set up as best as possible to be themselves, but if they know that this is going to end up on Instagram, then we might get a different version of them.”
Sage, an actress and writer, dabbled in matchmaking prior to launching The Jewish Dating Game.
“I’ve always had a good sense of people, and I’ve made successful matches in the past, just for fun,” Sage said. “And it just felt like a calling that I hadn’t really tapped into, and now I’ve just leaned all the way in.”
She pursued matchmaking with Lehrman’s help after the two experienced setbacks in their professions. “I’d been sort of at a crossroads with my career in voiceover because AI came knocking and decimated our industry,” Sage said.
“[The Jewish Dating Game] started for two reasons. … Because our creative careers were being impacted, there was this creative void that Linnea was feeling,” Lehrman said. “Post-Oct. 7, there was a big void in this reinvigoration of a need for community in the Jewish space.”
Over months, Sage grappled with how to fill these gaps, according to her husband.
“And then, overnight, she goes, ‘I had this idea where I could be creative, and I can start building a community around this,’” Lehrman said.
The Feb. 14 show is The Jewish Dating Game’s first showing outside of New York and, more recently, Washington, D.C.
“It’s a great, thriving Jewish community,” Sage said of Philadelphia.
Danielle Selber is the matchmaker with the nonprofit Tribe 12, which connects young adults to Jewish life. A mutual friend brought up the idea of hosting The Jewish Dating Game in Philadelphia, and Selber was already familiar with the show.
“I saw them on Instagram like everybody else, and I was really intrigued by the concept,” Selber said. “It seemed really original and unique. So, when I was thinking about what to do for Valentine’s Day, I reached out to [Linnea and Paul] directly.”
Last year on Feb. 14, Tribe 12 brought in professional matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom, well-known for her Netflix series “Jewish Matchmaking.”
“Every year around Valentine’s Day and Tu B’Av, we try to do something big and different, and a way to have everybody come together,” Selber said. “With The [Jewish] Dating Game, one thing that was especially appealing was that everybody can come and be in the audience, from singles to couples, but also Jewish people and non-Jewish people.”
Selber said she most looks forward to the “after-party” where audience members and contestants mingle.
“The way that Linnea explained it to me is that the people who were on stage sort of become like celebrities, and afterwards, everybody wants to talk to them,” Selber said. “I think that will be a fun dynamic for people to be able to go and talk to the people who were on stage, and also, of course, talk to each other, because a lot of people there will be single.”