CROWN HEIGHTS — After trying to make a match for years, he finally delivered.
A young Hasidic couple says they owe their engagement to a neighborhood fixture — the UPS deliveryman, Terry Spiers.
Zevi Goldin, 25, said everybody in the area knows Spiers, who has been delivering packages to his block since he was “a little kid.” For the past two years, Spiers encouraged Goldin to meet Chana Simon, 21, who Spiers knew through her mother, Regina Simon, who works at a nonprofit on his route. Goldin was skeptical.
“I was dismissive of the entire thing until he came back and told us, ‘Yeah, her mom is really interested. Do you have one of those things, a shidduch resume?’” Goldin told DNAinfo New York, using the Yiddish word for the matchmaking biographies some Jewish families use to determine potential pairings between young people. “Next thing, I knew her uncle was calling me up to try to set up a date.”
Goldin said he's known of Simon and her family for years, even graduating last June from the same school, Touro College, where Simon studies now. But the two were never formally introduced until Spiers came along.
“He’s been bugging me for two years," he said.
Goldin, whose story was first told by the Chabad-Lubavitch news site COLlive, said he knew by the second date that Simon was the one, but waited a couple of months before popping the question. Their engagement became official last week, with a party Thursday night in Crown Heights to celebrate. Of course, Spiers was there.
“The UPS guy who delivers your package knows everything about you, like the old village yenta,” Goldin said. “He knows myself and my family really, really well.”
Goldin said Spiers has wanted to be the shadchan, or matchmaker, for at least one couple before his expected retirement in two years. And he finally got his wish. Simon and Goldin’s wedding is set for June 2.
Spiers was too busy at his delivery job Wednesday to talk about his match-making, saying he'd rather let the couple tell their own story.
