The revered matriarch of Temple Israel of Hollywood, Ruth Nussbaum (ne Offenstadt) passed away on April 27th, 2010. She was an internationally recognized leader in the Reform Jewish community.
Born in Berlin on September 9th, 1911 to Max and Margaret Offenstadt, Ruth and her older sister Lily grew up at the cultural heart of Berlin society. Their lives exemplified the intellectually modern and assimilated nature of the Jewish community.
Her father was in the rubber import trade, and transacted business in American Dollars; this fluke permitted the family to weather the devastating inflation of the Deutschmark in 1923. Ruth studied Language, Philosophy, and Art at universities of Berlin and Geneva.
Ruth married Fritz Toby in 1932, and and gave birth to her daughter, Hannah in 1934. In 1936, Ruth and Fritz emigrated to Amsterdam, Holland, to escape the rising dangers of Nazism. Ruth and Fritz divorced in 1937, and he emigrated to Palestine.
For one year Ruth and Hannah lived alone in an apartment in Amsterdam. Anne Frank and her family lived around the corner, and Anne often came over to play with Hannah and the other children in the neighborhood. Ruth took a photograph, now historic, of Anne Frank, Hannah, and other local children playing in a sandbox. Life magazine later profiled Hannah and the other surviving children from that photograph.
Ruth then grew close with a dynamic young Rabbi from Berlin, Max Nussbaum. Nussbaum was born in a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that later became Romania, and because he held a Romanian passport he was permitted marginally more freedom to travel than were other German Rabbis. Indeed, few Rabbis remained in Berlin by the mid 1930’s. Nussbaum visited Amsterdam as often as possible, and proposed to Ruth in late 1937. Nussbaum was well known in the Jewish community as an outspoken liberal Zionist with a fiery oratorical style and the looks of a matinee-idol.
Ruth and Max were wed by a judge in Amsterdam on the 7th of July, 1938, and religiously married by the Rabbi Leo Baeck in Berlin on July 14th. Nazi officers observed the wedding; by this time, Rabbi Nussbaum was known for potentially “subversive” political and religious behavior, and his activities were scrutinized. The Nussbaums used the relative protection of their foreign passports to fight tirelessly for Jewish emigration.
In late 1940, Ruth and Max Nussbaum emigrated to the United States. General immigration quotas at that point were impossible to attain. With the help of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise in New York, Nussbaum secured a position with a congregation in Muskogee, OK. Ruth’s parents were also able to emigrate but due to American immigration policy, Hannah, now five, was unable to travel with her mother and step father, and had to travel alone, from country to country, by train and then boat, until meeting her mother in New York five months later. It was in Oklahoma that Ruth gave birth to her second child, Jeremy.In 1942, Rabbi Nussbaum was offered the pulpit of Temple Israel of Hollywood. The Nussbaums moved to Los Angeles, and the Rabbi became a towering leader in the Reform community, serving the temple for 32 years until his death in 1974. Ruth often worked with her husband on the composition of his speeches and sermons, and quickly Ruth assumed a crucial and beloved role in the Temple community.
The couple was embraced by mid-century Hollywood, and the Rabbi presided over numerous weddings, including those of Elizabeth Taylor with Eddie Fischer and Sammy Davis, Jr. and May Britt; he converted a number of Hollywood figures, including Taylor and Davis. The Rabbi eulogized Fanny Brice, Al Jolson, Samuel Goldwyn, and Edward G Robinson. The Nussbaums were close with many renowned German and Jewish “exiles” in Los Angeles, including Thomas Mann and Lion Feuchtwanger. In 1959, after months of secret planning, Ruth brought her husband onto the set of a television studio, where Rabbi Nussbaum was welcomed by Ralph Edwards with the famous phrase, “This is your life!”
Ruth and Max Nussbaum traveled frequently to Israel as leaders in the Zionist movement. They were part of the first UJA mission to Israel, and they shared the Brandeis Award of the Zionist Organization of America. In 1964, the Nussbaums were guests at Lyndon Johnson’s White House, when the President was hosting Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. They worked closely with numerous Israeli leaders, including Ben Gurion and Golda Meir.
Ruth felt strongly that the Civil Rights movement was the American parallel to Jewish Zionism, and she and the Rabbi fought tirelessly for racial equality in the United States. In 1965, Rabbi Nussbaum proudly welcomed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak from his pulpit.
After Rabbi Nussbaum’s death, Ruth fully took on the mantle of Zionist leadership, becoming a National Vice Chairman of ARZA. She received the American Zionist Federation Shield of Zion Award in 1979, and was a Co-Chairman of the Women’s Division of the United Jewish Welfare Fund. Frequently lecturing at Reform Jewish conferences in both in America and abroad, Ruth received an Honorary Doctorate from Hebrew Union College in 1996. In 1992 Temple Israel of Hollywood named its main sanctuary in honor of Ruth and Max Nussbaum. Her life story is the subject of a documentary film, currently in progress.
