As a single woman, Lian Zucker was tired of swiping right and left on dating apps and told herself there must be a better way to utilize technology to help find a partner.
At an event on February 23 hosted at The Jewish Center entitled “The Art of Connection,” Zucker, in conversation with Rebbetzin Dr. Rachel Levine, explained what led her to create the Loop app and how it works.
Stated Zucker: “For what is fundamentally the most important social decision that we’ll ever make in our lives, why are all the solutions so incredibly lonely? Why is it me alone at night swiping right, swiping left, evaluating people in a vacuum?”
Embracing her entrepreneurial passion, the Yale-educated Zucker then founded the matchmaking app Loop. Explaining how the app works, Zucker stated that Loop requires singles to create a typical dating profile. Arguably, however, that is where Loop’s similarity to traditional dating apps ends.
“The app is a matchmaking app,” stated Zucker. “Everyone on Loop can create matches, only the singles can receive them.”
When users sign up for the app, they indicate if they are single and would also like to receive matches, or if they are on the app solely to create matches. Next, users build their network by connecting with friends who are already on the app, and inviting new friends.
Users can then access their friends’ ‘Loops’—connections—and ask for introductions.
“What I’m trying to do with Loop is to make dating serendipitous again,” stated Zucker. “Every single person who you touch in this world has the potential to either make a great introduction for you [or] make a great introduction for someone you know, and there’s so much power to that.”
Over 200 people attended The Art of Connection event—many of whom were married—which is a testament to the community’s profound desire to help single friends and family find matches.
As Levine stated to all of the potential matchmakers in the audience: “What it means to be a community is to care for one another, and what [better] way to care for one another then to let someone know that you want to help them find their person.”
Zucker was immensely pleased to showcase her app to The Jewish Center audience. Speaking to The Jewish Link Zucker stated: “Shuls and organizations around the world are using Loop to help people in their communities meet. People could be in the same room as their future partner and not even know it! Loop ensures these introductions actually happen.
“Many matches on Loop have resulted in meaningful relationships and even marriages—and babies. The event at The Jewish Center was absolutely wonderful and gave people a renewed sense of optimism around dating and matchmaking.”
Dr. Nava Silton, developmental psychologist and community outreach coordinator at The Jewish Center, emphasized to event attendees that “we are all matchmakers (and) we all have the capacity to be matchmakers in different ways,” one of which is Loop.
Perhaps some of the most powerful words of the evening came from The Jewish Center’s Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine (husband of the event’s moderator, Rachel), who relayed this thought: The Talmud says that after a person reaches 120 they will go up to Shamayim, and meet with the members of the heavenly tribunal, and each person will be asked a series of questions, one of which is עסקת בפריה ורביה / asakta b’piryah v’rivyah, understood as “did you apply yourselves to the mitzvah of making matches so that people can make Jewish families.”
Connect with Loop at https://www.loopmein.me/
Loop indeed makes it easier for every single one of us to be a matchmaker.
Judith Falk is the creator of the Upper West Side Shtetl Facebook Group. You can follow her on instagram
@nyc.shtetl. She’s single, and matched one of her closest friends who got married two years ago.
