Although I am defeated (as many others before me) by Edna Ferber’s “The schnuckle among the nations of the world,” (A Peculiar Treasure, p. 10), Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish gives some guidance on the following:
It was Alexander Woollcott who acted as schatchen in the marriage between the novel entitled Show Boat and the music of Jerome Kern. (p. 304)
Rosten has:
schadchen
1. A professsional matchmaker
2. Anyone who brings together, introduces, or maneuvers a man and woman into a meeting that results in a wedding.
And, indeed, context explains this one. Woollcott and Ferber, attending an opening together, are hanging out at intermission, in different parts of the lobby, when Woollcott is accosted ever so gently by Kern:
“Look, Aleck, I hear you are a friend of Edna Ferber. I wonder if you’ll kind of fix it for me to meet her. I want to talk to her about letting me make a musical from her Show Boat. Can you arrange an introduction or a meeting or something?”
Mr. Woollcott, with a dreadful relish for the dramatic plum which had thus fallen into his lap (if any), said, musingly, “M-m-m, well, I think I can just arrange it if I play my cards right.”
“Thanks,” said Kern. “Thanks awfully, Aleck, I’ll be—”
Woollcott now raised his voice to a bellow: “Ferber! Hi, Ferber! Come on over here a minute.” Then, “This is Jerome Kern. Edna Ferber.”