Broken Vows

Broken Vows
Author: Eric Francis
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2002-12-15
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1429996943

Rabbi Fred J. Neulander was the respected head of one of the largest synagogues in New Jersey. Yet underneath his hallowed image seethed an unfaithful husband who spoke of desire to see his wife killed. So when Carol Neulander was found bludgeoned to death in the living room of the couple's Cherry Hill home, authorities immediately suspected that the beloved spiritual leader was involved. But without any evidence the case began to stagnate. The complex web of secrets, lies, and murder was only just beginning... Six years after the killing, private eye Leonard Jenoff came forward with the shocking confession that blew the case wide open: Rabbi Neulander hired Jenoff and Paul Daniels to kill his wife. Incredibly, Jenoff thought he had been hired to kill an anti-Jewish terrorist. Daniels blamed schizophrenia for his involvement. Neulander insisted he was innocent, setting the stage for a sensational trial that would leave a wealthy community shattered and expose a much darker side to this charming man of God.

The Rabbi and the Hit Man

The Rabbi and the Hit Man
Author: Arthur J. Magida
Publisher: Harper
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2003-05-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Edgy and controversial, this fascinating true crime narrative recounts the tale of the first rabbi ever accused of murder--and explores what the case says about the role of clergy in America today.

Sex, Lies, and Rabbis: Breaking a Sacred Trust

Sex, Lies, and Rabbis: Breaking a Sacred Trust
Author: Charlotte Rolnick Schwab
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2003-07-08
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1403338043

Sex, Lies, and Rabbis: Breaking a Sacred Trust by Charlotte Rolnick Schwab, Ph.D. is a powerful book, a combination of memoir and nonfiction, about what happens when clergy, specifically, rabbis, are deified. It is about the betrayal and the cover up of the betrayal of teen aged girls and women by male rabbis, and thereby, the betrayal of these rabbis wives, families, congregations, communities, denominations, and all Judaism. Two murders are connected to rabbis sexual abuse. One rabbi is awaiting retrial for allegedly hiring a hit man to murder his wife because of his sexual misconduct. This author writes about her own frightening, shocking experience as the wife of a rabbi-perpetrator of sexual abuse of other women, his violence toward her, and threat to kill her if she told about his nefarious double life. The book delineates in one volume: the crisis in the rabbinate, in congregational Judaism; what needs to be done to bring about healing and change; gives description of cases of rabbis sexual abuse as told to the author (these cases are all composites; the victims/survivors identities are disguised), and as reported in the media, including the two murders related to rabbis sexual abuse; the alarming extent of this problem; outlines policies that synagogues and denominations need to adopt; provides definitions of sexual abuse; discusses the kinds of personalities of rabbis which can lead to rabbis becoming sexual predators; and offers some suggestions for prevention. The book offers a Resources List and extensive Bibliography, including articles from Jewish and secular newspapers around the country, about rabbis sexual abuse. The book provides a healing program geared toward Jewish victims/survivors or rabbis sexual abuse; it can be adapted for victims/survivors of abuse by other clergy and of other kinds of abuse, including abuse by batterers. Women who suffered abuse of any kind will find this book validating and helpful for healing and recovery. "12 Steppers" will be especially interested in this book. The book is helpful to people of all religions who are experiencing the crisis of their religious authorities sexual abuse and covering up of that abuse, including Buddhists, Catholics, and Protestants. It is an urgent read for all Jewish people concerned about the safety of their teen aged children and women, and about the future of their religious organizations and communities. Books have been written about Catholic priests and Protestant ministers and sexual abuse; this is the first about rabbis sexual abuse. Rabbis Arthur Gross-Schaefer and Marcia Zimmerman, and Rev. Nils Friberg praise the book on the book jacket. Maj-Britt Rosenbaum, MD, psychiatrist and former Director of the Long Island Hillside Medical Center Sexuality Center, wrote the Preface. Gary Schoener, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, who treat both clergy-perpetrators and victims, wrote the Foreword.

The Beauty of What Remains

The Beauty of What Remains
Author: Steve Leder
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0593187555

The national bestseller From the author of the bestselling More Beautiful Than Before comes an inspiring book about loss based on his most popular sermon. As the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in the world, Steve Leder has learned over and over again the many ways death teaches us how to live and love more deeply by showing us not only what is gone but also the beauty of what remains. This inspiring and comforting book takes us on a journey through the experience of loss that is fundamental to everyone. Yet even after having sat beside thousands of deathbeds, Steve Leder the rabbi was not fully prepared for the loss of his own father. It was only then that Steve Leder the son truly learned how loss makes life beautiful by giving it meaning and touching us with love that we had not felt before. Enriched by Rabbi Leder's irreverence, vulnerability, and wicked sense of humor, this heartfelt narrative is filled with laughter and tears, the wisdom of millennia and modernity, and, most of all, an unfolding of the profound and simple truth that in loss we gain more than we ever imagined.

The Rabbi’s Wife

The Rabbi’s Wife
Author: Shuly Rubin Schwartz
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2007-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0814740537

2006 National Jewish Book Award, Modern Jewish Thought Long the object of curiosity, admiration, and gossip, rabbis' wives have rarely been viewed seriously as American Jewish religious and communal leaders. We know a great deal about the important role played by rabbis in building American Jewish life in this country, but not much about the role that their wives played. The Rabbi’s Wife redresses that imbalance by highlighting the unique contributions of rebbetzins to the development of American Jewry. Tracing the careers of rebbetzins from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present, Shuly Rubin Schwartz chronicles the evolution of the role from a few individual rabbis' wives who emerged as leaders to a cohort who worked together on behalf of American Judaism. The Rabbi’s Wife reveals the ways these women succeeded in both building crucial leadership roles for themselves and becoming an important force in shaping Jewish life in America.

The Plight of Jewish Deserted Wives, 1851-1900

The Plight of Jewish Deserted Wives, 1851-1900
Author: Dr Haim Sperber
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2022-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782846999

Agunot (Agunah, sing., meaning anchored in Hebrew) is a Jewish term describing women who cannot remarry because their husband has disappeared. According to Jewish law (Halacha) a woman can get out of the marriage only if the husband releases her by granting a divorce writ (Get), if he dies, or if his whereabouts is not known. Women whose husbands cannot be located, and who have not been granted a Get, are considered Agunot. The Agunah phenomenon was of major concern in East European Jewry and much referred to in Hebrew and Yiddish media and fiction. Most nineteenth-century Agunot cases came from Eastern Europe, where most Jews resided (twentieth-century Agunot were primarily in North America, and will be the subject of a forthcoming book). Seven variations of Agunot have been identified: Deserted wives; women who refused to receive, or were not granted, a Get; widowed women whose brothers-in-law refused to grant them permission to marry someone else (Halitza); women whose husbands remains were not found; improperly or incorrectly written Gets; women whose husbands became mentally ill and were not competent to grant a Get; women refused a Get by husbands who had converted to Christianity or Islam. The book explores the reasons for desertion and the plight of the left-alone wife. Key is the change from a legal issue to a social one, with changing attitudes to philanthropy and public opinion at the fore of explanation. A statistical database of circa 5000 identified Agunot is to be published simultaneously in a separate companion volume (978-1-78976-167-2).

Laws in the Bible and in Early Rabbinic Collections

Laws in the Bible and in Early Rabbinic Collections
Author: Samuel Greengus
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2011-10-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1608999467

The remarkable discovery of ancient Near Eastern law collections or "codes," beginning with the Laws of Hammurabi and followed by many other collections in decades following, opened a new window upon biblical law. This volume seeks to examine within a single study all of the biblical laws that are similar in content with ancient Near Eastern laws from Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Hatti. The book also examines a small but important group of early rabbinic laws from postbiblical times that exhibit significant similarities with laws found in the ancient Near Eastern collections or "codes." This later group of laws, although absent from the Bible, are nevertheless of comparable antiquity. The presentation focuses on the actual law statements preserved in these ancient law "codes." The discussion then adds narratives, records, and reports of legal actions from ancient sources outside the laws-all of which relate to the formal law statements. The discourse is non-polemical in tone and does not seek to revisit all theories and interpretations. The format allows readers, including those who are new to the subject of biblical law, to engage the primary sources on their own.

The Rabbi's Bible

The Rabbi's Bible
Author: Solomon Simon
Publisher: Behrman House, Inc
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1969
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780874410235