How Joe met Yonit
Published January 22, 2010
Tolstoy wouldn’t have approved. In his classic “Anna Karenina” he wrote that parents should let young people alone arrange the matters of marriage as they think best.
But sometimes moms know best. Just ask Joe Serkin and Yonit Golub.
“It was the first time my mom had ever tried to set me up,” says Joe. “She didn’t pressure me. She just casually mentioned Yonit and emailed me her photo.”
“And it was a first for me,” says Yonit. “Though I had given my mom carte blanche to set me up when I was nineteen.”
It took Mrs. Golub three years to find Mr. Right for her daughter. It was the fall of 2007 and both moms were employed by Yeshiva University – Ms. Serkin, as a director of technical training and Mrs. Golub as a director of administration. When Ms. Serkin came to Mrs. Golub’s office to provide computer training, she noticed a Golub family photograph. Their conversation turned personal and the moms began to compare notes. The Golub daughter, Yonit, was 24, and the Serkin son, whom she referred to as Yosef, was 25 and the idea of a match began to foment.
“My mom is one of my closest friends,” says Yonit. “I talk to her just about everyday. She knows me extremely well. If she suggested this Yosef guy, it had to be OK.”
Yonit agreed to be set up.
But even before he had a chance to call her, Yonit met him on her own. There was a birthday party for one of her roommate’s friends from Brandeis, and Yonit tagged along. At the party, Yonit was briefly introduced to someone named Joe.
Only later did she realize that Yosef Serkin was the same Joe from the party. And when Joe called to ask her out, she had to decide: Should she tell him that they had already met? Yonit was up-front, which went over well with Joe, an up-front of guy himself. Their first telephone conversation lasted for several hours.
Yonit and Joe had much in common. They had mutual friends and had visited the same places. Both had attended Solomon Schechter Day School; both were university graduates – Joe’s degree was from Brandeis University and Yonit had graduated from Johns Hopkins, from which she also received a master’s in international relations. And they both worked for the city of New York. Joe was a New York City police officer in the 28th precinct of Harlem; and Yonit was a policy adviser in the office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development.
On November 18, 2007, they had their first date – they went out to dinner.
Some say it doesn’t make sense to go out to dinner on a first date.
Joe responds: “It’s an investment. Just do it.”
‘That’s the kind of guy he is,” says Yonit. “He’s not shy. He’s confident. He was raised to be very independent. He just puts himself out there. He’s also kind and caring. I had never met a policeman before.”
Joe Serkin is not your typical New York policeman. First of all, Joe studied acting and theater at Brandeis, and secondly, there are not many Jewish policemen.
Though Joe works weekday nights, he and Yonit always spend Shabbat together. “Jewishly we’re very compatible,” says Joe. “We both love Israel. We have visited often and have close friends and family living there.”
“We feel at home in both Israel and New York City,” adds Yonit. “We live in Manhattan and love its cultural life. We run in Central Park and walk our dog there. New York is very important to us.”
In June, 2008, Joe, 26, dressed in police uniform, proposed to Yonit, 25, in her office at City Hall.
“Our moms batted a 1000,” says Joe. Their one and only match worked out.
Stephanie Rosenbloom, in an article for The New York Times, relates other similar stories, and concludes: “For today’s super-attentive parents, involved in almost every aspect of their children’s lives, dating is merely one more sphere of influence. Surprisingly, many adult children don’t seem to mind. In an age of electronic courting, where dating can be reduced to a bleary-eyed scroll through lackluster Web site profiles, some see the appeal of Match.mom.”
Yonit agrees. “And since our moms worked together on this match, the in-laws were friends long before the wedding.”
Joe Serkin and Yonit Golub were married on December 21, 2008. Mazal tov.
Read past installments of Leah Hakimian’s column, ‘Godsend’
Read past installments of Leah Hakimian’s column, ‘Godsend’
