The Rebbetzin paused and thought for a moment. “I’m sure he sent him because of this talent of connecting to each and every Jew — regardless of how different they were from him — no matter from where they came, what they wore, how they thought. His heart was open to everyone. It made no difference. If a Yiddish child came to his door, that was all that counted. In fact, every Shabbos, he had a learning seder with Dr. Rothstein, a Lubavitcher, whom my husband continued to learn with, until he made aliyah.”

What kind of a father was he, I wondered aloud.

The answer came easily. “Firm but loving. He was home and present for his children, interested in what they did and how they dressed,” explained the Rebbetzin. “He instilled in his children a pride of who they were, and he made them feel like royal children. While he did have restrictions, he taught them to be proud and confident. He lost his wife when his children were still young. After he married off the first four alone, he remarried. His loyal rebbetzin a”h helped him marry off the remaining five children, before she too was nifteres.”

Reaching out with Warmth

“In those days, there were very few shtreimel-wearers in Baltimore. In 1952, my father-in-law was encouraged by the Satmar Rebbe to establish and head a Yiddish-speaking cheder, Shearis Hapleitah — now known as Torah Institute,” said the Rebbetzin. “The small group of chassidim who settled in Baltimore introduced a European chassidish flavor to the Baltimore Jewish community and enhanced Baltimore’s Yiddishkeit. My father-in-law instituted the baking of matzah on Erev Pesach, with water drawn from a well. He knew how to get along with the litvish crowd, and did not push his philosophy on them. He encouraged going to the mikveh, chassidus, and varmkeit.

“Before kiruv was in style, he reached out to people. He wasn’t out to change people. He accepted people as they were, and in doing so embraced them with this warmth. In return, the city gave him respect and honor. This legacy was passed down to my husband. We are presently fulfilling my father-in-law’s last wish — we are in the final planning stages of building a new mikveh to replace the 40-year-old one that deteriorated from heavy use. After his death, we found the plans for the new shul that Rav Amram built, which included a new mikveh. For reasons unknown, that part of the plan never materialized.”

I was so engrossed by the Rebbetzin’s stories, I didn’t realize the sun was beginning to set. Although I had planned to bentsh and leave relatively early so I could walk home before it got dark, I couldn’t pull myself away.

After offering me a piece of cake, the Rebbetzin continued her account of Rav Amram’s first years in Baltimore. There were no mohelim in Baltimore when Rav Amram arrived. And yet, the strongly litvishe community was hesitant to accept him in this position. “Rabbi Hirsch Diskind ztz”l was the dean of Bais Yaakov — the school Rav Amram’s daughters attended. When Rabbi Diskind’s father-in-law, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky ztz”l, came to visit his family for Succos, he was invited to be sandek at the bris of one of Rav Amram’s sons. Rav Yaakov watched Rabbi Taub do his son’s bris and he was very impressed by his efficiency and expertise. At that point Rav Kamenetsky told his son-in-law that there was no need to bring a mohel from New York. Rav Amram became the community mohel.”

How did the Taub daughters integrate into such a different community? I asked.

“My sisters-in-law, the Taub daughters, held to their Williamsburg standards of tzniyus. Nonetheless, their friends always wanted to come to their house because it was very leibedig and fun — kids always gravitated to this house. Whenever there was a major school project or production, the principal consulted with my father-in-law, whose opinion they valued.

“All five of my sisters-in-law got married young — within weeks of high school graduation,” continued the Rebbetzin. “Their Bais Yaakov principal, Rabbi Binyomin Steinberg ztz”l, even changed the graduation date to accommodate one of their wedding dates!”

So young? I questioned. It’s hard to imagine getting married within a few days of leaving high school. But there’s a story behind this, too.

“Rav Amram was first married at the age of 18. It was before the war, and he became a dayan in a neighboring village a year later. His wife soon gave birth to a little boy. On the way to the bris, Rav Amram’s father, Rav Shmuel Dovid Hy”d, asked, ‘So, what are you taking upon yourself as hakaras hatov to the Ribono shel Olam? You got married young, did a shidduch — Torah u’gedulah b’makom echad.’ Take it upon yourself to marry off your children young.’ ”

So much of recent history is shrouded in the tragedy of the Holocaust. Despite Rav Amram’s resolution, his son never made it to the chuppah. He died al Kiddush Hashem in the Holocaust. His next four children were also returned to Shamayim as pure, unsullied souls.

“Rav Amram was zocheh to fulfill his promise for the nine children who were born to him after the Holocaust. He married off the first four as an alman (widow), then there was a devoted rebbetzin at his side to help him marry off the next five.”

Merging Worlds

Curious about the Rebbetzin’s own background, I asked her about it and discovered that like her husband, she, too, is a scion of Torah greatness. “My father, Rav Avraham Meyer Israel, was the author of many seforim, including commentaries on Shas, Torah, and sh’eilos u’teshuvos. He also lost his wife in the war, in addition to two children,” said the Rebbetzin. “After the war, he was appointed chief rabbi of Vienna.”

“What did that involve, in those tumultuous post-Holocaust days?” I ask. Jewish infrastructure was in shambles. Who knew how to go forward?

“There were survivors, so many survivors who searched through list after list after list, looking for lost husbands. Could they remarry? Were they agunos? Was there still hope that their husbands might be found?”

An emotive and thorny issue, I noted.

The Rebbetzin nodded. “Yes. My father did an enormous amount of research — so much time, so much effort. And everything — every query, every question — was sent by mail, so it all took very long. He set a standard that, to ensure that the spouse really had died and free the woman to remarry, three witnesses were needed. To find those witnesses in each case was difficult. Who remembered? Who wanted to remember? My father was like a detective, meticulously digging up clues. He set the standard for heter meah rabbanim and his halachahdig opinion was respected by gedolei Yisrael all over the world.”

And the Rebbetzin’s mother? “My mother, Rebbetzin Chava (nee Fried) Israel, was known as Frau Rabbiner in Vienna. She came from an Ashkenazic background, and was very cultured,” replied the Rebbetzin. “She enjoyed the opera, classical music, and reading the classics. She lived her culture and never left it behind. She passed it down to her children — all of us girls are well-read.”

So how did she marry a chassid?

The Rebbetzin gave a wry smile. “She hesitated at first. And then she met my father. A man committed to learning all his life. My mother honored that, she respected it and was proud of it. My father’s gadlus in learning was evident — he wrote seforim on Torah and the whole of Shas. And so they were married in 1947, in Badgestine, Austria. During the four years they lived in Vienna, my father became known as the Vienner Rav — the chief rabbi of Vienna. He later called himself the Hunyad Rav, after a Romanian town he had served in.

“My brother was born in 1949 in Vienna, and my sister and I were born on the Lower East Side of New York. We later moved to Williamsburg and after that, in 1963, to Boro Park. There, my mother was a powerhouse — a one-person bikur cholim committee. She was also a wonderful fundraiser. She only went to the wealthy, not door-to-door, and she was able to get donations from people who were known not to give. One time, my mother and a friend were collecting money for an important project. Catching sight of a name on my mother’s list, her friend tried to dissuade her. ‘You’re going to him? He never gives anything!’

“But my mother was determined. When the man answered the door, my mother said, ‘I’m so honored that the man of the house came to the door. I’m collecting for a very important cause, and in my experience, men give more than women.’ To her friend’s surprise, he gave generously — the equivalent of a half month’s rent!”

Wafting in from the dining room is the sound of the men singing “Yedid Nefesh.” There, at our little table, we seemed to be enwrapped in a place somewhere in the past, where great people performed great deeds.

“One of my mother’s jobs in the concentration camp was taking the bodies from the gas chamber to the crematorium,” said the Rebbetzin. “She didn’t have the time to give meisim the kavod she felt was appropriate, so she took it upon herself that if she’d survive, she’d give kavod to meisim. By doing so, she would be asking mechilah — it would be a zechus for those she couldn’t honor in the concentration camp. That’s why she joined the chevra kaddisha in Vienna, to fulfill her promise. And she continued it here, when my parents moved to New York.”

The sun that had beamed into the window, causing the sequins on two handmade pictures to glow, was fading. Shabbos was drawing to a close. Although I was anxious to walk the mile home before it turned pitch black, I still had so many more questions for the Rebbetzin. I wondered what it was like to be the daughter-in-law and wife of a chassidish rebbe in such a non-chassidish city, and what life lessons she could share.

Continuing the Legacy

“When I got engaged and people heard I was taking a boy from Baltimore, they didn’t know there was a chassidish community there,” recalls the Rebbetzin. “After we got married, we lived in Boro Park, before moving to the Kasho community, in Bedford Hills, for 26 years. There we raised and married off most of our children — we too married off our children relatively young.

“My father-in-law was getting on in years and at every opportunity he had, he’d discuss his great desire to have one of his sons or grandsons continue his legacy. He made it part of his will. Since our children were already out of school and yeshivah, we were able to make the move. It made my father-in-law happy to know that he had a child ready to commit to staying in Baltimore to continue his work. I knew, from visiting my in-laws, that I was coming to a very wonderful, warm, and accepting community. I felt privileged that I was able to move to Baltimore and continue my father-in-law’s legacy, together with my husband, his successor.

“My father-in-law was alive when the older of our two boys got married,” continued the Rebbetzin. “We were already living in Baltimore, and he had the zechus of putting the shtreimel on his six-foot-four grandson just before his aufruf Shabbos. He asked his grandson to sit down for the ceremony, so he could reach the top of his head, and then asked him to stand up, so he could see the proud young chassan. He told him: ‘You should always be proud of your levush and you should see as much nachas from your doros as I see from mine.’ On Shabbos day, about 20 family members escorted the chassan to shul, singing. Park Heights Avenue never saw such a thing!

“Becoming a rebbetzin and moving out of Boro Park were two pivotal moments in my life that were definitely not on my agenda when I got married,” explained the Rebbetzin. “At that time, it wasn’t popular to move out of the city. It was really hard, at first. But, after 26 years I look back and feel I wouldn’t do it any other way. Now that my kids are raising their families, they are doing the same thing. Most of them are moving out of the city to Monroe. When children compliment you for how you raised them and follow in your ways, that’s the biggest gift a mother can receive.”

It was with regret that I left the Rebbetzin’s warm presence that Motzaei Shabbos. But the conversation wasn’t over. I phoned her, thanked her for her company, and she gave me a message to share in the lead-up to the Yamim Noraim.

“Follow a mesorah,” advised the Rebbetzin. “Take the advice of your parents or rosh yeshivah, or person you look up to, and if you need more advice, go back to the same person. Don’t pick and choose. Don’t look for shortcuts. Don’t shop around. Stay the course and the Eibeshter will help you. That brings siyata d’Shmaya.

“The key to taking on kabbalos that will last is following your mesorah, and keeping in mind that whatever you take upon yourself should be whatever your family can go along with. Otherwise, it will create a wedge,” advised the Rebbetzin.

“One of the hardest things in my life was working outside the home. After 30 years of being at home, I took a job at B&H Photo in Manhattan, four times a week. The avodah of a woman should be in the house. First and foremost are her husband’s and children’s needs. When a child walks into the house from school, the mother should know what kind of a day he or she had.

“In school, we were taught how to daven, of course, but while the children are young, our place is at home with them — this takes precedence over davening in shul. This is the tafkid, this is the avodah of the Yidddishe mamma. Always keep in mind that everything you do is for the next generation.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 410)