"The Jewish Soul on Fire"

A rabbi's wife uses TV to lure dropouts back to the fold

In Orthodox Judaism, a woman's place is usually in the home. And all branches of Judaism tend to shun the high-pressure appeals used by today's Protestant TV preachers. By rights, then, Esther Jungreis, tiny, intense Orthodox Jewish revivalist from Long Island, should not be in business at all.

Jungreis, 45, bills herself as "the Rebbetzin" (Rabbi's Wife) or "the Jewish Soul on Fire." Others call her "the Jewish Billy Graham," but unlike the Baptist evangelist, she does not seek converts from other religions. Her sole mission is to lure, cajole or otherwise summon secularized Jews back to their faith.

Her effectiveness stems from her evident fervor and a theatrical willingness to challenge Jews to a fully committed life. Listeners may be told that they are "witnesses to murder" because they are allowing a generation of Jews to "disappear in silence, through apathy, ignorance and assimilation." Jews are not free agents, she tells her audience: "You are links in an eternal chain. You belong to your people."

Another part of her appeal is pure show biz. As a star platform personality, Jungreis comes on in flashy outfits of white, black or electric purple, wearing spike heels and heavy eye makeup. All that plus a slight Hungarian accent and blond wig make her look and sound a bit like Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Staid rabbis are sometimes scandalized by her delivery, which ranges from a concerned whine to a dramatic whisper. But lay listeners are held spellbound by her blend of polemics and pizazz. Sometimes they weep openly as she speaks about the possible fate of Israel or the loss of Jewish youths through intermarriage with non-Jews. "This generation suffers from Jewish amnesia," she says.

The Rebbetzin launched her unusual career in 1973 in New York. Now, besides speaking for her volunteer organization, Hineni, she leads consciousness-raising classes, is finishing a book, writes pamphlets (e.g., Meaningful Sex--A Jewish View) and answers 600 to 700 letters a month. Occasionally Jungreis will boldly park her "heritage" van outside a Hare Krishna or Divine Light Mission outpost and with a loudspeaker try to coax young Jewish converts into leaving.

Her latest project is a weekly talk show for the new Jewish National Television hookup, which goes to 50 cable outlets and a potential audience of 1.5 million. The Rebbetzin's first show dealt with the Nazi Holocaust. Said Jungreis, who spent a year in Bergen-Belsen: "We must learn to speak of the unspeakable, to answer the unanswerable. We are a nation that actually descended into the abyss of hell and yet retained a spark of divinity."

Other shows discuss the Jews for Jesus, what it is like to be Jewish in China and the Soviet Union.

Jungreis came to the U.S. in 1947 at age eleven and was later married to Orthodox Rabbi Theodore Jungreis.

Years ago she helped him expand his North Woodmere, N.Y., synagogue from three to 200 families by visiting every Jewish home in the area. Theodore admits it is rare for a woman in Orthodoxy to be a platform celebrity, but sees nothing wrong, so long as she does not usurp the rabbi's role of conducting services.

Esther, who comes from a long line of Hungarian rabbis, vigorously attacks Jewish feminists. The woman's task is to be "priestess of the home," she says, and to raise children as observant Jews.

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