As the debate over women’s leadership roils among religious and secular alike, the rabbi’s wife stands out as a strange, misfit creature. She is a 21st century woman who finds herself in that bizarre position of a title defined by her husband’s work alone. Often, she is looked at as a trophy wife, a first lady, an undocumented and unpaid worker — yet she has the power to influence in the most rigid of places. Long before the rise of liberal Judaism’s female clergy, it was the rabbi’s wife who served as advisor and spiritual guide for the daughters and mothers of the community.
Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, “Confessions of a rabbi’s wife: ‘I wanted to hide behind a husband and a wig'”, Salon (26 December 2015) [http://www.salon.com/2015/12/27/confessions_of_a_rabbis_wife_i_wanted_to_hide_behind_a_husband_and_a_wig/].