"She is unbelievably giving," he said of Ms. Schiffman, who is a program development officer in Washington with an international development organization called Pact, and the president of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington. "We're all selfish at some time, but she's so generous. She's always looking out for everyone." "I go through life with a sense of wonder, and he can be the same way," said Ms. Schiffman, who was on a Peace Corps assignment in Uzbekistan on 9/11, when she was suddenly evacuated. "From the beginning, we would stay up and laugh about things, and that made me feel like I was a kid again."
Uzbekistan Tamar Schiffman Marries
Tamar Schiffman and Jonathan Lechter
Andrew Councill for The New York Times
By ABBY ELLIN
Published: October 22, 2010
Photo: Andrew Councill for The New York Times
MEETING the parents is always awkward for couples, but for Tamar Schiffman and Jonathan Lechter it was especially uncomfortable: her parents met her future husband in a Washington hospital, as their daughter recovered from a major operation.
The couple signed their ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract, at their wedding.
But that's getting ahead of the story.
Ms. Schiffman, an administrator for a nonprofit group, and Mr. Lechter, a lawyer, first overlapped orbits in July 2008 through a Web site.
"I hate dating and I didn't want to go online," said Ms. Schiffman, 32, who was raised in Chico, Calif., and Israel. "The last guy I dated was six years younger, and the one before that was 14 years older. I thought, I guess it's time to get serious. My friends pushed me to go on JDate."
Friends of Mr. Lechter, whose last relationship had ended that May, recalled being frustrated with his inability to find a good match. "I'd been infatuated with many women, but that's not really love," said Mr. Lechter, now 33 and a self-described serial monogamist who had had a string of long-term relationships.
He was the second person Ms. Schiffman met on the JDate site. At the time, "I wasn't looking to settle down," said Mr. Lechter, a telecommunications associate in the Washington office of the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. "I don't believe in love at first sight."
But he immediately found Ms. Schiffman, a former Peace Corps volunteer, charming, beautiful and selfless - and way out of his league.
She also did not think they'd connect, but as they spoke, she was struck by the fact that he was close to his family yet had a somewhat edgy side.
"I was hooked," Mr. Lechter said, "and eager to speed things up." So much so that after their second date, he showed up unannounced at her office with flowers - "a big bouquet I picked up on the street."
But this very public display of his ardor scared Ms. Schiffman. On the third date she told him they had to slow down. "He made me date like a grown-up, and it was really weird and bizarre to me," she said. Her message about slowing down was somehow lost on him when Ms. Schiffman, upon learning he and his family were departing on a three-week trip to Israel, sent him an e-mail with details of what to do there.
Mr. Lechter mistook her guidance as a sign that she was really interested in him, and he missed her very much while he was away. "I remember being on the beach in Tel Aviv with my family telling them about this amazing woman that I just met," he said. "I didn't know what would happen when I came back."
She missed him, too - much more than she'd anticipated. When he returned, they picked up where they had left off, slowly falling in love.
"She is unbelievably giving," he said of Ms. Schiffman, who is a program development officer in Washington with an international development organization called Pact, and the president of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington. "We're all selfish at some time, but she's so generous. She's always looking out for everyone."
"I go through life with a sense of wonder, and he can be the same way," said Ms. Schiffman, who was on a Peace Corps assignment in Uzbekistan on 9/11, when she was suddenly evacuated. "From the beginning, we would stay up and laugh about things, and that made me feel like I was a kid again."
Then, four months into their relationship she was gripped by a searing stomachache. The diagnosis: a large tumor on her pancreas. It was unclear if it was cancerous, and Mr. Lechter broke down.
"Given the survival rates for people with pancreatic cancer, I was in despair," he said. "I was thinking, I really like her and I can't believe I might lose her."
Her operation at George Washington University Hospital involved the removal of the gallbladder, the duodenum and most of the pancreas and bile duct. The tumor was benign, Mr. Lechter said, but "if they didn't catch it, she would have died."
A follow-up CT scan found a second tumor (also benign) in her liver, requiring another operation.
Throughout the ordeal, she said, Mr. Lechter was her beacon. "I peeked at my chart in the surgery room," Ms. Schiffman said. "The nurse had written under the ‘family' section, ‘Patient has a very devoted boyfriend.' "
That Ms. Schiffman already knew; what she did not know was how much danger she had been in. "I was in denial about how sick I was," she said.
Mr. Lechter visited her at the hospital every morning and every evening, escorting her and her IV along the halls, and barraging her with humor. "He's the biggest goofball," she said. He then worked with her as she recovered at home for three months. Drainage tubes poked out of her stomach; she had to learn to walk again.
Throughout her recovery he sent e-mails to friends and family, updating them on her progress and sharing every triumph.
"Any guy would have said, ‘I'm not sticking with a sick woman,' but he stuck with her and nursed her to health," said Irving Schiffman, her father.
"He was very steady, but he's a very steady guy," said Bradley Heller, a friend of Mr. Lechter's. "He doesn't get stressed out."
Mr. Lechter shrugged off the compliments. "It would have been more of a dilemma if I didn't like her as much," he said, adding that he had begun thinking they could be married, but he didn't know for sure.
Once she had fully recovered, the couple began traveling together and worked on getting to know each other's friends. Last March, while in Israel to meet Ms. Schiffman's extended family, he proposed to her, on her brother's balcony.
They were wed on Oct. 10 at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Va., an artists' gallery and studio space, where after the ceremony, led by Rabbi Charles M. Feinberg, the couple's 175 guests dined on a Middle Eastern-themed buffet. Instead of wedding cake, the couple, who organized the event themselves, served baklava.
"I was going through one of the most difficult things that anyone can go through, and yet I felt like the luckiest girl in the world," the bride said. "There were really hard times, but we laughed every day."
