Married to the Rabbi: Sixty Spouses of Retired Reform Rabbis in Their Own Words

Married to the Rabbi is a sometimes delightful sometimes upsetting but always interesting view into the world of the Reform rabbis spouse and family in a period of American Jewish life that is already becoming history. That world -- and the role rabbinic spouses have played in it -- too often has been both misunderstood and undervalued. Naomi Patz and Judith Maslin have assembled and edited a fascinating book. Jeffrey Stiffman Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis Missouri is immediate past president of THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED REFORM RABBIS.This volume describes how the role of the rebbetzin has changed in the past seventy years. Cognizant of the significance of their lives as rabbis spouses fifty-nine women (and one man) have documented their experiences for future generations. What a treat to hear their voices! Their moving funny and insightful stories add vital texture to our understanding of the history of American Judaism since World War II a time of major changes. The essays portray the many ways in which rabbis spouses -- some of whom are proud to call themselves rebbetzin and others who totally reject the title (if not the role) -- have played a key function in furthering Jewish life.Their essays give us a rich appreciation of the significant role that Reform rabbis wives played in the expansion of American Jewish synagogue life and the opportunities marriage to a rabbi provided for women who felt called to religious leadership in the era before they could become rabbis. Consciously or not they have modeled female religious leadership for future generations of American Jewish women and thus paved the way for the talented women rabbis and communal leaders who enrich the Jewish world today. Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz author of the award winning The Rabbis Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life is Provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Irving Lehrman Professor of American Jewish History.EXCERPT from Married to the Rabbi Adapted from the essay THE RABBIS WIFE by Janice Rothschild Blumberg The most traumatic event of my life with Jack began when the telephone awakened us shortly after seven oclock on Sunday morning October 12 1958. He scurried to my side of the bed to answer. After a long horrified Oh no! followed by Ill be right there he put down the receiver and told me The Temples been bombed.The news spread quickly. President Dwight Eisenhower mentioned it later in the morning at a largely Jewish political rally in New York. From then on our telephone rang without pause. I couldnt leave it even long enough to get a cup of coffee. Then a call came that was unlike all the others.Im one of them that bombed your church the caller said and Im callin to tell you theres a bomb under your house and its lit and youve got five minutes to get out.I believed the call was a hoax but couldnt risk being wrong. I called my husband who soon arrived with police and FBI agents. I found myself wondering who hated us enough to have set the bomb...