| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Rabbi's Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life. By Shuly Rubin Schwartz. (New York: New York University Press, 2006. xiv, 311 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-8147-4016-2.)

Shuly Rubin Schwartz's engaging book makes the case that most rebbetzins in America did not see themselves as merely the wives of rabbis, and they should not be seen as such by historians of American Jewish, women's, or religious history. From at least the late nineteenth century, the spouses of rabbis (who, in contemporary times, might well be husbands or life partners) have confronted a variety of communal expectations and stereotypes while carving out roles that sometimes affirmed traditional gender roles and sometimes challenged them. As Schwartz points out in a series of chronological chapters, the focus of rebbetzins shifted over time based on their individual personalities, their feelings of belonging to a cohesive cohort, and their encounters with the changing social and religious conditions of American Jewry. However, they consistently influenced their congregations and communities through their usually unpaid, often unrecognized, work as writers, teachers, public speakers, counselors, and role models.

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