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.
