Publication: Miami Herald, December 24, 2004
by Tere Figueras Negrete
Matzo Ball: antidote to a silent night
"Bored on Christmas Eve? Single? Jewish? You could try the Matzo Ball tonight. Thousands of others do every year.
For most of his life, the night before Christmas came down to two options for Andy Rudnick: chow mein or Jimmy Stewart.
''There's nothing to do on Christmas Eve if you're Jewish,'' said Rudnick, ``except stay home and watch reruns of It's A Wonderful Life. Or go get Chinese food.''
Such was the lot, Rudnick realized, of countless other bored young Jews left to their own devices while others went about a-wassailing their way through Grandma's eggnog.
Hence the Matzo Ball -- an annual holiday party for Jewish singles that over the better part of two decades has spun out from its humble beginnings in a Boston bar to a bicoastal bash that covers 13 cities, including Miami Beach.
The doors open at 8 p.m. for tonight's Matzo Ball at Opium Garden on Collins Avenue. Last year, the same event drew 2,000 people, filling the club to capacity before midnight. No surprise there.
The Beach tops the list of prime Matzo Balls each year, along with Washington, D.C., New York....[a]nd Boca.
In fact, South Florida plays host to three Matzo Balls this year -- the third is at Palm Beach's Club Monkey -- meaning a busy night for Rudnick. He'll have to finish the tricounty bar crawl before the night is done.
''I'm kind of like Santa,'' he said.
But while St. Nick hitches his sleigh to Blitzen et al., Rudnick rolls with a different crew: 5-year-old twin daughters, Alexa and Samantha, who already are doing their part for the family business. Dad had them out on Ocean Drive this week, handing out club promos.
''They're the product of Matzo Ball,'' said Rudnick, who met his wife at one of his annual shindigs in 1997.
''I had to marry a nice Jewish girl,'' he quipped. ``It wouldn't have been good for business if I didn't.''
Because for Rudnick and his band of merrymakers, Matzo Ball isn't just a mixer. It's a mitzvah.
The best part are the marriages. [T]he organization -- a subsidiary of the Society of Young Jewish Professionals -- has boasting rights to 1,000 Matzo Ball-induced marriages.
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