Courtesy photo

Shirley Nigri Farber with her husband, Scott, and their son, David.

Shirley Nigri was at the Western Wall on a Friday night in Jerusalem, praying to G-d for a good marriage partner. Scott Farber was on the other side of the wall, doing the same.

It was July 2001; Shirley was in Israel for a month to attend a Young Leadership Zionist Congress and a Leadership Diplomatic Seminar of the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs. She saw the good-looking, tall guy, but left. The next morning she saw him again, and he saw her. A Randolph native, Scott had moved to Israel and was living between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at the time.

A local rabbi, who arranged for visitors to attend Shabbas meals at sponsoring families, wound up sending them to the same home. There they began talking, and later, while strolling the streets of the Old City, discussed their mutual desire to marry Jewish.

The rest may be obvious by now, but the tale is still magical in its serendipity. They quickly became engaged, and married in Brazil in 2001. Today, the couple lives in Stoughton with their five-year-old son David, who attends the South Area Solomon Schechter School in Norwood.

Shirley Nigri Farber’s parents emigrated from Lebanon to Brazil when they were young, and Shirley grew up in South America. In Brazil, Farber produced the Jewish radio program “Shalom Israel,” and was a correspondent for “Chabad News,” the Israeli broadcasting network “Kol Israel” and the Rio daily, “O Dia.”

When she moved to America, she became an active member of both the Jewish and Portuguese-speaking communities.

Fluent in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish and Hebrew, Nigri Farber also understands some Arabic, the language spoken by her parents. With her husband she operates Farber Marketing, a company that connects American and Brazilian businesses.

Farber is proud of how her weekly bilingual cable TV show and magazine Bate Papo have helped better the lives of viewers and readers, and how her quarterly Shalom Magazine is bringing together Jews from different areas.