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Kohn interns meet by chance and make a match

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/20135/full/20135/kohn-interns-meet-by-chance-and-make-a-match/ Kohn interns meet by chance and make a match Friday, June 20, 2003 | by liz harris From the very first time she laid eyes on him, Mariana Roytman had a definite opinion of Dan Schiffner. It was June 1997, and the two 19-year-olds were among a group of 31 bright young college students gathered in San Francisco for their initial meeting of the Kohn Summer Intern Program. "It was the very first day of Kohn," recalls Roytman, now 25, "and I thought, 'Oh my God. I can't believe this guy walked in late. What chutzpah!'" On the other hand, she couldn't help noticing that he was nice-looking. That evening, of course, her mother asked the proverbial question: "Are there any cute boys in the program?" The odds weren't too favorable, with 25 girls and only six guys in the group. Nonetheless, Roytman admitted there was one who'd caught her eye, but she hadn't had a chance to talk with him: In addition to the fact that he arrived late, "I sat on the other side of the room," she explained to her mom. "But I think I'm going to marry him!" Where that came from, Roytman doesn't really know. The comment "was always the big joke" in her family, she now says. But the joke's on everyone else, because she and Schiffner, 25, are getting married Sept. 7 at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. Though both grew up in the Bay Area, the two would no doubt never have met if not for Kohn, a program of the S.F.-based Jewish Vocational Service, which at the time was directed by Deborah Louria of Jewish Vocational Service. Schiffner, then a student at Duke University, worked that summer for Jewish Community Online in the offices of the Jewish Bulletin. Roytman, then a student at UCLA, worked for AIPAC-American Israel Public Affairs Committee. As Kohn interns, the college-age students spend eight weeks working at their respective jobs Monday through Thursday and get together on Fridays to discuss their experiences and participate in seminars. Though Roytman and Schiffner didn't have time to talk that first Friday (turns out he was late because he needed to take care of a speeding ticket), the second Friday session proved luckier for the two. A federation official happened to show up to snap a photo for an article in the Jewish Bulletin. He asked for two volunteers, but no one responded. So, as photographers are wont to do, he took matters into his own hands and rousted two victims: Roytman and Schiffner. "Thanks to the Bulletin, we had to stand there for five minutes while he took the shots," says the bride-to-be, an outgoing type who now works full time doing marketing and public relations for the Bureau of Jewish Education in San Francisco. Roytman and Schiffner had their first lunch together on June 27, and over the course of the summer and next five years came to know each other very well, indeed. The couple will hold a family celebration on Saturday, June 28, in honor of their six-year anniversary. Needless to say, it's a busy time. Schiffner, in his third year at UCSF Medical School, works 12-hour days, with a 24-hour shift thrown in for good measure. And though most of the wedding plans have already been firmed up, the couple is still taking care of details, dealing with the guest list and other such matters, he says. Schiffner credits his fiancée with doing most of the work, however. "She's a take-charge person, and she's taking charge," he says simply. She was instrumental, for example, in getting the rabbi at UCLA Hillel to officiate at the ceremony. Roytman was "very Jewishly involved at UCLA," she says, and still feels strong ties to her campus Hillel and the Los Angeles Jewish community. Growing up in San Francisco, she attended Emanu-El and graduated from Hebrew Academy. Now that she works next-door to the school, she says, "I feel like I made the complete loop." Though Judaism always played a somewhat prominent role in her life and Roytman had traveled to Israel on a confirmation trip, she says it was "March of the Living" -- a program she participated in through the BJE as a high school student -- that turned her on to communal activism. On the trip, participants spend a week in Poland followed by a week in Israel. "I felt like that really changed my life," she says. Visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau, getting to know a survivor who joined the students on their bus travels -- cumulatively, the trip had a profound impact. "For me, something resonated," she says. "From that moment on," she says, she knew where her commitment lay. Schiffner, who grew up in Atherton and attended Temple Beth Jacob in Redwood City, visited Israel through a BJE program when he was 16. But the Kohn internship "really opened my eyes to the Jewish services that are available in the Bay Area." Actually, he was lucky to get into the Kohn program. He first heard about it through a friend, a month after the deadline for applications had passed. Undeterred, Schiffner picked up the phone and called Louria, who agreed to let him apply anyway. He chose to work with Jewish Community Online because "that was the type of thing I was looking to do. It was the start of the dot-com boom and the technology was very alluring." Louria, now East Bay regional director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, says the upcoming marriage of the two former interns "is a first as far as I know." Having come to know the two that summer of 1997 and watching their relationship bloom, "this is the most lovely possible outcome," she says. She wouldn't miss the wedding: "I'm totally thrilled." She'll have a prime spot in the sanctuary. "I promised her front-row seats," Roytman says, laughing.

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