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The Power behind the Throne Fourteen years after Minna the yeshiva bocher’s wife appeared in fiction, Abram S. Isaacs presented American Jewish families a very different view of the rabbi’s wife. Isaacs, a rabbi, scholar, and author of several books for young people, included a story about a rabbi’s wife in his collection, Under the Sabbath Lamp: Stories of Our Time for Old and Young. Published by the Jewish Publication Society in 1919 to address the dearth of home literature for American Jews, the volume included stories “in the guise of unpretentious fiction,” to direct attention “to permanent elements in our social, domestic, and religious life, which are all-powerful in shaping the character of Israel and preserving Jewish ideals.” By spotlighting a rabbi’s wife as one of his protagonists , Isaacs held up this role among those “permanent elements,” thereby demonstrating that the rabbi’s wife as a positive religious figure had entered into the consciousness of American Jews.1 Isaacs’s rabbi’s wife, Esther, is bright and studious, possessing “heart and sensibility.” With her husband suffering from rheumatism, Esther offers to preach one Sabbath in his stead. The narrator understood that a rabbi’s wife not only would be qualified to fill in for her husband but also would be eager to do so. “The golden moment for which she had patiently waited and for whose responsibilities she was amply prepared was now at hand.” Esther explains her decision to preach with reference to her special role. “‘As I am his wife and helpmate, I deemed it my duty, with his consent, to come.’” But Esther uses the occasion to champion the right of all women to preach, for “the synagogue needed women’s influence for its grandest development.” Disarmed by her charm, congregants find themselves unexpectedly “awed by her spirited manner and words.” The story ends by both reaffirming the expected gender order and endorsing the bold path taken by the rabbi’s wife. The rabbi—“man-fashion”—took credit for her success: without his rheumatism she never would have spoken from the pulpit. But he then 2 51 applauded her efforts, noting their joint accomplishment: “‘We have begun a reformation!’”2 Esther embodies many of the qualities of the eastern European rebbetzin —a learned, wise, sensible woman who ultimately gains special admiration for her virtues because of her position. Hoping to inspire an American audience of all ages, Isaacs echoed the positives of the old-world role while utilizing the English-language title, “rabbi’s wife.” This fictional characterization signaled a decade in which the American rabbi’s wife assumed a publicly defined leadership position. Books, lectures , and symposia began to address the role while groups of rabbis’ wives banded together for common purpose. All of this signified not only that the role had come into its own by the 1920s but also that suf- ficient consciousness existed to merit a modicum of introspection by both rabbis and their wives. The role of the rabbi’s wife emerged after 1910, at the same time that the American rabbinate came into its own. This can be attributed in part to the synagogue’s evolution from a worship-centered institution into a multipurpose facility designed to meet the social, cultural, spiritual , and educational needs of American Jews. Rabbinical seminaries enhanced their training to cultivate rabbis appropriate for such settings. Solomon Schechter transformed the JTS rabbinical school into a graduate institution. By 1930, HUC also required a Bachelor of Arts for admission to its Collegiate Department. Though Orthodox rabbinical seminaries continued to have varied requirements for the secular education of their students, there was a growing recognition that its congregations also needed well-educated American rabbis at their helm. At the same time, rabbis, at least in larger congregations, began to earn respectable salaries.3 Because of these developments, the rabbinate became a desirable career goal, and the number of men training for it increased. In 1924, Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Seminary at Yeshiva College enrolled 231 candidates for ordination. These graduates easily found jobs, for the number of synagogues also grew tremendously during this period—from 1,901 in 1916 to 3,118 in 1926—with most of that growth in Reform and Conservative congregations. For many reasons, then, American-trained rabbis serving the Jewish community during this period saw themselves as a 52 | The Power behind the Throne [3.141...

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