Rebbetzin by Chaim Grade is the first narrative in Rabbis and Wives, which was shortlisted for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, albeit I could not find it on The Greatest Books of All Time site at all, never mind seeing it near the top…you find thousands of reviews of magnum opera from The GOAT and other prestigious lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-you-have-any-suggestions-how-to-make.html

 

Rebbetzin by Chaim Grade is the first narrative in Rabbis and Wives, which was shortlisted for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, albeit I could not find it on The Greatest Books of All Time site at all, never mind seeing it near the top…you find thousands of reviews of magnum opera from The GOAT and other prestigious lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-you-have-any-suggestions-how-to-make.html

 

8 out of 10

 

I must say that I am pro semitic https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-fixer-by-bernard-malamud.html and biased, I enjoy Jewish literature, the way of life, to the point where I wonder if I am not more than 15% Hebrew, this is what my daughter found when looking at where do we come from, maybe it is 30% in my case, halved for Hannah, because she has a mother

 

The name is Hebrew, and it is associated with grace, favor…now back to Rebbetzin, which is what the wife of the rabbi is called, we can learn quite a few terms from this narrative, there are a few types of rabbis, one is called the maggid, the main character of this first part of the finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize is Perele

“The Rebbetzin Perele was the exact opposite of her husband in appearance as well as character: a slight woman with narrow shoulders and thin arms, with sharp, searching eyes and a tall rabbinic forehead inherited from her father, the great sage Rabbi Osherel Broido, the Gaon of Staropol.” She is the leader, the one creating the story

 

The 2022 Winner of The Pulitzer was The Netanyahus https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-netanyahus-account-of-minor-and.html and I remembered how The Netanyahus throws light on a period in history when Bibi was young, whereas Rebbetzin has in the background the time before the creation of the state of Israel

“The Graipewo RAV and his wife had reached their later years. Their children were all married and lived in Horadna. The Rav, Rabbi Uri-Zvi Ha-Kohen Koenigsberg, was a huge, fleshy man, tall and wide, with wavy side-locks flowing into a snow-white beard and large, innocent light-blue eyes.” This is the first paragraph of Rebbetzin

 

Perele wants to move to Horadna, especially after the confrontation with the community in Graipewo, which refused a raise in salary, except this is a minor reason, she had been engaged to Moshe Mordecai Eisenstadt, who is now venerated as ‘The Jewish Pope’, and his former fiancée has some payback, closure left

Once in this new, bigger town, despite the fact that she had talked about her husband finishing the book he had been writing, Rebbetzin Perele keeps pushing, first he gest to be the rabbi of The Stone Synagogue, then he represents one faction, which is fighting another: I was surprised by the clash between the Mizrahi and the Agudah

 

The former is supportive of the creation of Israel, although those involved in the holy land at the time appeared to be rather secular, while the Agudah are very much against them, exactly because they see them as blasphemous, or close to that…here is another book that I enjoyed, from the same great literature https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-horse-walks-into-bar-by-david.html