Veteran badchan Yonasan Schwartz sings for new couples by night and repairs frayed marriages by day
He has no official title or shingle hanging from his window, but the owner of Brooklyn’s Toys-2-Discover toy store chain by day and wedding grammer by night (although after three decades he says he’s slowing down) has been producing widely-viewed weekly video clips for the last three years, sharing his thoughts on shidduchim, shalom bayis, the tragedy of throw-away marriages, divorce and parental alienation.
Because really, no one has a window to the minefield of family dynamics like a skilled mitzvah tantz badchan, who has to keep the peace all around, show honor to all sides and be very funny and entertaining without offending anyone.
Reb Yonasan always knew his mouth was his most powerful tool, although he assumed that only went as far as the dance floor. But it was during the Covid lockdown that he discovered people were interested in what he had to say even if it wasn’t in rhyme or grammen. His insights into shalom bayis, divorce trauma, parental alienation and the ubiquitous shidduch crisis are profound — and really, what else would you expect from someone who’s spent most nights for the past 35 years navigating complex family relationships while sending new couples into their future?
“A good badchan is really a family therapist,” Reb Yonason says. “He has to be highly intuitive and very quickly tune in to the nuances of the family dynamics. With a few words, he has the capacity to make shalom between relatives or fan the flames of machlokes. I don’t even know most of the families I do weddings for, but after doing this for more than three decades, an hour of gathering family details from a few different sources is usually enough for me to know what to say and what not to say.”
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