Love With a Perfect Stranger : Matchmakers: From introductions to background checks, go-betweens still find spouses for some members of ethnic communities.

Arnie was shy. Until he was matched with Debra.

“She was the first girl I actually ever spent time with,” said Arnie, a North Hollywood Orthodox Jew. “I was so shy that one time a rabbi actually dialed her phone number for me to make sure we talked.”

Suresh Iyengar, a Sherman Oaks dentist, received a modern education at USC, but he journeyed back in time to find a wife.

“I was an accomplished bachelor,” Iyengar recalls about his 1973 visit to his native India. “It was time to get a wife.”

And Walid Dinkha, about to embark on his new life in America, figured that he had found the perfect partner in his Iraqi neighborhood.

“I hadn’t met her, but I knew the raw material, what she’s made of, from her family,” Dinkha, of North Hollywood, said. “I knew her father was a fair man, and that her mother would treat me like her own sons.”

Together, all three men illustrate that, even as their own ethnic communities have assimilated into the San Fernando Valley, they stick by the traditional ways of finding their wives. Their marriages are carefully arranged, and while both sexes have equal free will to back out or find someone else, the pressure on them is often severe.

As the Valley--and, seemingly, the rest of America--resorts to video dating and nightclub mixers, they cling to the past. They say it’s the best way. It keeps their communities alive and minimizes the chance of divorce.

“He and I have made it,” said Iyengar’s wife, Malathi. “But it doesn’t end there. We fit into the whole community. It’s not just a marriage between us; it’s a bond between our families, and within our culture.”

Said Michelle Linson, an Orthodox Jew, of North Hollywood: “I have unreligious friends who told me recently that they wished someone had investigated their husbands, and maybe they wouldn’t be divorced now.”

Dating, said Arnie’s wife, Debra, can be hazardous to your mental and physical health. That’s why a more traditional approach, in which potential dating partners are actually investigated by rabbis, makes a lot of sense.

“You’re meeting people that someone else knows,” said Debra. “You’re not going to go out with Jack the Ripper.”

Orthodox Jews normally utilize the services of a shadchan, or matchmaker, who seems to know everyone in the community. As the leader of the community’s study sessions, the local rabbi often plays that role.

In North Hollywood, that falls to Rabbi Zvi Block, dean of the Aisha Torah religious school. He estimates that he has set up more than 100 couples in the past decade who eventually married.

“What’s the idea of dating? To go bowling? To go to a movie?” asked Block. “No. The idea of dating for us is to find a lasting and meaningful relationship. There are going to be problems but by matching up the right people, I can minimize them.”

Block offers matches on his own or listens to input from others. Often, someone will approach him, asking if could find out whether a member of the opposite sex might be interested in dating.

Block then reports the responses. He says that if one partner doesn’t want to see the other again, hearing the news from him can be more soothing.

Each party always has a choice.

“Many think that marriages between Orthodox Jews are prearranged, that they meet under the canopy for the first time,” said Barry Linson, Michelle’s husband. “That’s a stereotype of what went on in Europe. Even non-religious Jews have that impression. But they’ve always had a choice.” (The impression might have been encouraged by the 1960s play and movie, “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which Tevye tries to arrange a marriage between his daughter, Tzeitel, and the well-to-do middle-aged butcher she hardly knew.)

Block also becomes involved in developing romances even if he isn’t the original matchmaker. Recently, a concerned woman called him in need of information.

“He has certainly impressed me as a sincere fellow,” said Block, to the woman who had just dated the man for the first time. “He’s very strait-laced, very learned. You can’t go wrong.”

Block doesn’t hesitate to present discouraging information. “If I had reservations,” he said, “I might say that the person isn’t as committed to Judaism as he should be. I’m not here to slander people.”

The Linsons are grateful for Block’s assistance. Michelle Linson considered herself a “poor judge of character” and needed an expert’s opinion. She encouraged the rabbi to meet Barry, her future husband, for lunch. “I wanted to know if he was really who he pretended to be,” Michelle Linson said. “I remember calling the rabbi that same day. ‘Is he for real? Is he as good a guy as he seems?’ ”

By last month, Jonathan--not his real name--had spent a decade searching for the proper mate. Twice before, he had even proposed to women but was turned down. At 36, his doubts were mounting--would he be a bachelor forever? The constant sight of visiting homes on the Sabbath with happy marriages and kids roaming everywhere was uplifting, and depressing. He quickly made it known to friends in the community that he was searching for a wife. Soon, Marlene--not her real name--more aggressive than most, called.

They went out for the first time in mid-March.

“Everything in my body said yes the first time we met,” Jonathan said. “I knew she was the one.”

They dated again, and again. They spent hours each night on the phone. Each did his or her obligatory background check with Rabbi Block and other religious authorities.

In two weeks, they will be married.

“I was stunned when she said yes,” Jonathan said. “I am so happy.”

In Indian culture, there is no designated matchmaker. Each family, in its own way, makes arrangements for their children. And while the tradition has lost some of its stature in the last several decades because of advanced education and modernization, many marriages are still arranged.

By 1973, when Suresh Iyengar returned to Bombay to find a wife, his parents had prepared the groundwork; in just a few weeks, he would choose a woman from a list of carefully selected candidates. He was a great catch--primed for a career as a professional in America.

He was set up with young women from well-respected families; still bound by the ancient caste system, parents seek to match their offspring with members of the same class.

Things did not go well. Either the women weren’t ready to move to the United States, or Iyengar wasn’t impressed with their character. He was going to give up. He had to return to America and his new life as a dentist. One more candidate, his parents pleaded.

The two families got together. Iyengar and the last possibility, Malathi, then only 19, talked briefly. They met again a few days later. By the end of the week, they were married.

While there was significant pressure from both families for them to get engaged, Suresh and Malathi reserved final say. (Rose Nair, an employee at the government of India’s Tourist Office in Los Angeles, says old-fashioned arranged marriages, in which neither partner had a choice, occur these days only in small countryside villages; in the larger cities, the practice is not nearly as confining. In some cases, families pick future spouses for their children before they even reach adolescence.)

When they finally settled in Sherman Oaks in the mid-’70s, life was not easy for them, especially for Malathi. She missed her family and her country. She was in a strange land, with a stranger in her bed.

“When we had to deal with problems,” Malathi said, “I really didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me, and that was tough. I was very unhappy for a long time. You wonder, ‘Who is this person?’ ”

Fortunately, Malathi received support from her husband’s brother and sister, who lived in America. She took classes at Cal State Northridge. She became a free-lance artist. She fell in love with her husband.

“We had to make it work, and so we did,” Malathi said. “When you are not open to the idea of separating, as in our culture, it makes you look at things in a different way. The relationship is solid. You don’t just run away.”

A similar dedication to the institution of marriage is shared by Iraqi men and women who were set up by their families.

“If there are problems, you have to solve them,” said Manier Isho, of North Hollywood, who emigrated from Iraq in 1981; his nephew and brother returned to their homeland to find wives selected by their families. “The family will even get involved if necessary. Divorce does not happen.”

As such, a heavy premium is placed by families on finding a spouse with good moral character. Falling in love isn’t as important as finding stability. Parents often seek to set their children, especially daughters, up with someone with a proven work ethic.

Dr. Matti Moosa, a professor of history at Gannon University in Erie, Pa., said the tradition of arranged marriages in Iraq, as in India, is declining because of advances in education and Western influences. “But because many feel Western culture is decadent, they still want their children married the old way.”

“By the time you get married, the love by itself isn’t enough,” said Walid Dinkha, of North Hollywood, who met his wife in July, 1982; they were married five months later.

Originally, when her parents proposed the marriage, Dinkha’s wife, Lucy, declined. She was in love with someone else. But the other man fell in love with another woman, and Lucy was alone.

“And when I found out, that’s when I told the family it would be OK to arrange things,” Lucy said.

They brought her Walid’s photo. She was impressed. They spoke on the phone constantly. Finally, a few months later, they met in person.

“When we met, I felt like I had known him for years,” she said. “I knew things would be OK.”

And while, as Malathi said, life with a new man in America wasn’t easy at first, Lucy survived and is now happy.

They have three young boys. Will they arrange the marriages of their kids?

“I don’t think they’ll get married that way,” Lucy said. “It will be very hard to do that in the United States. Not these days.”