Love has no real boundaries or borders, as this couple discovered.

Edward Rosenblatt grew up in the South Bronx, and after serving in the Army during the Korean War and attending City College, he began working at his father’s clothing store in the East Bronx. "The neighborhood was about 98 percent Jewish," Ed recalls. "And the store was right across the street from Jake the Pickle Man, a pretty famous guy in those parts." Even after the neighborhood changed, the family kept the business running and Ed became partners with his father.

This Cliffside Park couple’s shared faith led them to move to Israel — not once, but twice.

Both Sol Borodkin and Thelma Litwak were born and raised in Brooklyn, he in Crown Heights, she in Brownsville.

"He used to kid me that he married beneath him because he was from a better neighborhood," Thelma says with a grin. "But I’d always come back by reminding him that I was a Levi, while he was only an Israel."

Peter Adler came to America from Germany as an 8-year-old boy, after his widowed mother managed to get the family, which included his brother Frank, out of Nazi Germany. She settled with her sons in New York’s Washington Heights. When his mother remarried, the family moved to Forest Hills, Queens.

Ruth Rose grew up in Rego Park, just across Queens Boulevard from Forest Hills.

Annice Miller Schear has spent most of her life in Ohio — growing up in Cleveland, going to the University in Cincinnati, and working as a music teacher. But for five summers, from the time she was 14, she’d attended Kutz Camp in Warwick, N.Y.

"They’d started up a teacher education program to train Jewish youth to be teachers in synagogues," Annice explains. "I was part of the group chosen to go there from Cleveland. It was an amazing place, all of us living in the same village, studying Judaism, and learning Hebrew, as well singing and dance leading." Although she had to wait until she was two years older to assist at her synagogue, Annice eventually taught music and singing there. "One reason I’m a certified music teacher today is because of Kutz Camp."

Retirement can lead to a stressful period of adjustment for some couples — but for Ken and Diana Goldstein it was a time of rediscovery and reawakening.

Ken Goldstein was raised in Brooklyn and began attending NYU, expecting to graduate in 1965. But a year and a half later, his family started having financial problems, so in 1963 he left school and went into the insurance business. Diana Kronish, born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, began working for a brokerage firm in Manhattan after graduating from high school.

Sara Budweiser grew up in Akron, Ohio, loving music, especially playing the violin. Marvin Felder, who was raised in the Bronx, was a keen student of science and studied physics in college. As modern behaviorists might point out, these two exemplified the polar concepts of right brain and left brain, or the creative versus the analytical. Yet this couple found enough common ground to make a marriage work for six decades.

As an aspiring violinist, Sara studied with Joseph Fuchs, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, and received her degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. She was then appointed to the faculty and taught violin for three years. When Fuchs became an instructor at Julliard, Sara followed him to New York and studied with him for another year.

Whenever I encounter couples who are hesitant about participating in a Bashert interview, the first objection they usually raise is, "We really don’t have much of a story" — and then proceed to talk about their relationship for 30 minutes or more. One thing I’ve learned in nearly two years of writing this column is that every couple has a story to tell about their first meeting or their courtship. Some are funny, some are poignant, some are even disastrous. But the stories all share one quality: They portray human beings in search of that elusive thing called love. And when two people do find that special connection, their sense of elation is nearly palpable. This is the kernel of emotion I seek in my interviews — the awareness that romantic love has deeply touched these individuals and made them richer for it.

Religion and show business often produce kindred spirits, as this Pompton Lakes couple discovered.

A fourth-generation rabbi, David Senter grew up in North Bergen and Teaneck. "I was born in Christ Hospital in Jersey City," he says with a chuckle. "A bit strange for a future rabbi."

After attending Yeshiva University High School, he continued his studies at Shor Yoshuv Rabbinical College in Far Rockaway and was ordained as a rabbi at Kol Yakov Torah Center. Initially he worked for an organization his father founded, Kof-K, which supervises and certifies kosher food products, and he continued there as a rabbinic administrator until the early 1990s. When he left, it was to start the first kosher concessions at both Yankee and Shea stadiums; he also supplied food for the skyboxes which led to gypsy — or onsite — catering work.

Sometimes that special bashert union isn’t played out until the second act of a couple’s life.

Phyllis Kaplan and Bill Lowe were both born in Brooklyn; both eventually married and had children. After their respective divorces they remained single for many years, busy working and raising their kids. It was not until November of 1995, while Phyllis was living in New City and Bill was in Fort Lee, that their lives intersected.

Not every high school romance manages to grow and thrive, but this North Jersey couple made an easy transition from dating teens to globetrotting soul mates.

Paula Millenthal grew up in Union City and then Cliffside Park. "But I actually spent a lot of time in Hoboken," she says. "I had family there and went to school at Stevens Hoboken Academy. We also attended Cong. Adas Emuno."

In 1947, when she was in fifth grade, she met sixth-grader Bill Cantor, who was from Jersey City. Although they remained friends through high school, by the time Bill was a senior, something had changed between them. He realized he wanted to ask her out.