The Rabbi's Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life (review)

As a rabbinical student who was married to one of my classmates in the 1970s, I thought often about the other women who were married to men in my class and those who served as rebbetzins in the congregations where I went to shul or served as a rabbinic intern. I wondered what they thought about women rabbis, whether they saw me as a potential friend and colleague, or envied me for all the time I spent learning and working with their husbands. I was curious about whether they would rather have been me, or if in another era I would have been one of them instead. In telling the story of rabbis' wives in the United States in the twentieth century, Shuly Rubin Schwartz brings a new awareness to this group of women whose notable accomplishments have been neglected by scholars of American Jewish history.

Rubin provides biographical sketches of the lives of some of the key women who were married to (mostly) prominent rabbis. Carrie Simon, Mathilde Schechter, and Rebecca Goldstein are the "pioneer" rabbis' wives of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements of the late nineteenth century. Rebekah Kohut defined the role of rebbetzin in the American context in the early twentieth century as a writer, public speaker, and advocate on Jewish issues, while at the same time serving as a support for her husband in his rabbinic office. The presidency of Franklin (and Eleanor) Roosevelt created a model for the "activist partnership rebbetzins" of the 1930s and 1940s, exemplified by Mignon Rubenovitz, Rebecca Brickner, and the sisters Tamar de Sola Pool and Tehilla Lichtenstein (92). The women who were married to rabbis in the 1950s and early '60s, on the cusp of the second wave of feminism, brought further definition to the role of the rebbetzin, marking it as both essential, yet secondary, to their husbands' positions in the synagogue. The feminist movement that heralded the opportunity for women to serve in the rabbinate in the 1970s brought dramatic changes and choices to which, Schwartz tells us, rebbetzins reacted in "vastly different ways. . . . Some stubbornly defended the traditional role, while others found themselves unable to sustain a meaningful 'wife of' role . . . " (208). Here the biographies of Blu Greenberg and Esther Jungreis as women who forged new models of the rebbetzin cum rabbi stand out. The book ends with a very brief look at the contemporary scene and the conclusion that "the landscape of American Jewish life has been immeasurably enhanced by the contributions of its rebbetzins" (221).

These stories are powerful reminders of a different configuration of the all-too-familiar problem of balancing commitments to work and family that women face. The book makes it clear to us that the problem isn't new, and provides a thoughtful picture of the creative solutions women who were rebbetzins arrived at to fulfill their obligations to others and at the same time enhance their own personal development.

This work makes apparent the need for additional studies concerning the familial networks generated by the rabbinic profession in the United States. It is remarkable, for example, how many of the women in this book were also daughters of rabbis, including Martha Neumark, who, while never a rebbetzin, was the first woman to study for the rabbinate. The men who have joined the rank of rebbetzins, rabbis who are partnered with one another (including a significant number of gay and lesbian couples) will no doubt add another dimension to this story. Examining more closely the meaning of these complex familial structures will continue the path that Schwartz's work begins and further enrich our understanding of the many ways in which the American rabbinate is a family affair.