This posting is about Neila Carlebach again, the widow or is it “ex-wife” of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. She too is a figure in the public eye and as such should be scrutinized as she teaches and tells her late husbands’ or ex-husband’s stories.
First of all, she said on the now defunct, Carlebach Family website, that she teaches people on all levels of Judaism. There are different ways of looking at this method and approach.
One way of analyzing this is to say that she is good in realizing that not every Jew can become a successful BT and also, she doesn’t want to rip families apart or overload anyone. Shlomo had a tendency of burning people out. I know that from first hand experience.
The market for Orthodox Rebbetzins as teachers is a limited one. Maybe Ester Jungreis is successful but Neila? I know she was seeing mediums and spiritualist too as well as hanging with rabbis. She is a good friend of Rabbi Fried’s too.
Rabbi Fried’s wife by the way is angry with her for billing herself as the rabbi’s widow. It is a contention in the Orthodox community that doing this is wrong.
To defend her, Yeshua Witt told me that they had all kinds of contracts being drafted up so they could get back together at the time of his petirah or “passing away.”
She and Shlomo were fairly recently married when I met the Rabbi back in the mid ‘70s. I knew both of them from around the time that Nedara was born and I was in their apartment in NYC once with an old friend of mine from Ben Yishai.
Some years ago, I signed up for Basherte, an online Jewish dating service, because Neila was on the Board of Directors. I felt that there might be some success with a Carlebach affiliated marriage as opposed to what happened with Lubavitch.
It says on the site to help you meet your Basherte or “ordained soul mate,” you should keep the Sabbath. Well, I did that and look where it got me. I no longer am
affiliated with Basherte in any way.