Page 53 - HaMizrachi Chanukah 5783 USA

Did you then go to work? professionally, but soon I realized we When did you begin teaching here?
needed more income if we wanted to
I majored in math, which I really send our kids to college. I took some A friend introduced me to the OU Israel
enjoyed in high school and found to be Center and I first taught a course on
very beautiful. This was in the 1950s, courses at Washington University and the seven nevi’ot, and helped start a
spoke to one of the administrators,
which saw the beginning of computers, who told me that my math degree and women’s beit midrash in the afternoons.
and I got a job which I loved at a pension I was also invited to teach for Emunah
plans company, creating retirement my knowledge of computers were way and Tovei Ha-Ir, and for many years
out of date, and “...in any case, you’re
plans for teachers all over the USA. But I have taught a weekly navi class in
I had gotten married in my last year of a people person, didn’t you ever think Hebrew for women in my shul.
of teaching?” I said I didn’t think I
college, and once I had my first child it would be a good teacher and went
simply was not acceptable in our world Why do you love to teach navi so
to continue to work. home very discouraged. Now I’m not much?
making this up, but the moment I got
Your husband became a community home the phone was ringing. It was the It’s music; even the prose is music. The
principal of the local day school who
writing is utterly beautiful, and it is so
rabbi? was desperate to find a teacher for navi full – there is so much to learn. So much
When he got his semicha, he was hired as and dinim. I was about to say no, but I of the philosophy of Judaism is derived
the rabbi of the shul in Montgomery, AL. heard my voice saying, “I think I’d like from the words of the nevi’im, as well
I always said I wouldn’t marry a rabbi that, but I don’t know how.” He told me as so much of our history. And that’s
because I felt that my mother was quite he would help me, and he really did, why I love to teach the commentary of
unappreciated as a rebbetzin. But I have and got me started. I was hooked, really Malbim so much. He really wants you
to admit, it wasn’t as bad as I thought hooked, and I never turned my back on to understand the peshat – how specific
it would be. Still, Montgomery was day it after that. I did take some courses to words are used to convey the deeper
and night different from Brooklyn. Most hone my skills, but I now regret very, meaning. He is sometimes wordy and
of the Jews there were very far from very strongly that I didn’t pursue any hard to get through, but when he’s
frumkeit, but it was a wealthy community higher degrees in education because done, he really leaves me breathless.
with beautiful homes, and southern there were a lot of curricular ideas I
women were really coddled and treated wanted to work on, but I lacked the Finally, would you say that you have
with gallantry. This was just before the tools. fulfilled your dreams?
beginnings of the civil rights movement,
and we stayed there for five years. When did you start teaching adults? In terms of my family I must say that
I have, because, baruch Hashem, I have
After 18 years, it was time to move on many great-grandchildren, although
Did you do any teaching there? from the day school. I started teaching I’m hoping that He will let me see a
No, the Hebrew school was very small courses in Judaism and Jewish history fifth generation. As far as my teaching
and only my husband and the shochet to unaffiliated and non-observant is concerned, as I said, when I set out
taught. We wanted to start a day school, adults in the community. That’s when I it was never actually a dream of mine,
but couldn’t get even five families to really started to appreciate the wonders but I cannot even put into words the
join. Eventually, we realized we had of Jewish history and world history. tremendous, tremendous satisfaction
to move, not only because we needed Soon I was asked to speak for other I get out of it.
schools for our kids, but also because of organizations, and I also gave a Shabbat
how the local culture was rubbing off afternoon shiur in my house. All that
on them. The final straw was when one continued until my husband retired and
of my boys came into shul, pointed to a we made Aliyah.
chumash and said, “Gimme that cotton-
pickin’ bible”. Why didn’t you just stay on in St.
Louis?
Where did you move to?
My husband believed that a retired rav
In 1964, my husband became the rav of should never stay in his community, David Olivestone
Congregation Nusach Hari B’nai Zion, a and we both felt very strongly that is an award-winning writer who served
large shul in a very nice neighborhood Israel was where we belonged. I was a on the staffs of the British Museum
in St. Louis, MO. very staunch member of Bnei Akiva as and of the Encyclopaedia Judaica.
a teenager, and I felt very comfortable He was Director of Communications
What was your role there? when we came to Jerusalem. at the Orthodox Union in New York
I was a very active rebbetzin, and I before making Aliyah to Jerusalem
with his wife Ceil in 2013.
had no intention of doing anything

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