Rebbetzin Yocheved Jackie Wein

Rebbetzin Yocheved “Jackie” Wein (1934-2006). Born in Vaskai, Lithuania, the youngest child of Rav Lazer and Rebbetzin Sarah Menucha Levin. (Reb Lazer was a talmid of Kelm and learned with the Chofetz Chaim for five years.) The family moved to Detroit in 1938, to escape the growing terror in Europe. By the time of his petirah, fourteen years ago, he was respected as the Chief Rav of Detroit. In the mid 1950s, Jackie, a young woman trained as a qualified teacher (at the urging of the legendary Rav Simcha Wasserman,) married Rabbi Berel Wein, son of Rav Zev and Esther Wein, who was the daughter of Rav Chaim Tzvi Rubenstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Bais Medrash L'Torah. The young couple set up their new home in Chicago. In the early sixties, after several productive years in Chicago, Rabbi Wein's rebbi, Rav Chaim Kreiswirth advised the brilliant young scholar to go into rabbonus, where he could contribute so much to Klal Yisrael. When a position became available in Miami, the Weins packed up and moved South. But before they left, Rav Wein was instrumental in founding the Telshe Yeshiva in Chicago. The family remained in Miami for about a decade, until the early seventies, when Rabbi Wein became the Rabbinic Administrator of the OU, and then founded the kehilla of Bais Torah in Monsey, New York. In addition to raising her young family, Jackie, a trained teacher, accepted a fourth grade teaching job at Yeshiva Spring Valley, a position she held until they moved to Eretz Yisrael. In 1994, when the Weins moved to Eretz Yisrael she once again accepted the role of Rebbetzin with grace, reaching out from their new home in Rechavia, near the Shaarei Chesed neighborhood, where Rav Berel serves as a Rov.