Spouse Rabbi Moshe Shain | Parents Yaakov Yosef Herman | |
 | ||
Born Ruchoma HermanDecember 6, 1914Lower East Side, Manhattan ( 1914-12-06 ) Died 16 March 2013, Lakewood, New Jersey, United States Books All for the Boss, Dearest children,--, All for the Best | ||
Ruchoma Shain (6 December 1914 – 16 March 2013) was an American-born rebbetzin, English teacher, and author. She is best known for her first book, All for the Boss (1984), a biography of her father, Yaakov Yosef Herman, which she wrote in her late sixties. In detailing her father's life, she also describes Orthodox Jewish life in America in the early 1900s. All for the Boss became one of the all-time bestsellers for Feldheim Publishers, and Shain's stories and observations are quoted by numerous authors.
Contents
Her second book, Reaching the Stars (1990), chronicles her experiences as a teacher. She also authored Dearest Children, All for the Best, and Shining Lights.
Biography
Ruchoma Herman was born on New York's Lower East Side to Rabbi Yaakov Yosef and Aidel Herman. She was the youngest of her parents' five children. She had three sisters and one brother.
When she was seventeen years old, she married Moshe, eldest son of Rabbi Shimon and Geneshe Shain. Shortly after their wedding, the couple, at the behest of her father, traveled to Mir, Belarus, where they spent nearly six years while her husband studied at the Mir yeshiva under Rabbis Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, Yeruchom Levovitz, and Yechezkel Levenstein. Her sister, Bessie, wife of Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, and her brother, Rabbi Nochum Dovid, also joined them in Mir. Then they returned to the East Side. When their children were grown, the Shains moved to Jerusalem, purchasing an apartment in the new development of Kiryat Mattersdorf.
In the United States, Shain taught several grades. In Jerusalem, she was a popular lecturer. After the publication of her books, Shain received visitors seeking her counsel regarding various topics.
Shain wrote her first book, All for the Boss, in her late sixties upon the request of Yaakov Feldheim, one of the founders of Feldheim Publishers. Published in 1984, her book about growing up in New York City and the influence of her father became one of the all-time bestsellers for the publishing company, which until then had concentrated on Torah and rabbinic literature. All for the Boss was revised and expanded in 2001, and Feldheim published a "Young Readers Edition" in 2006. Feldheim translated the book into Hebrew in 2002. In 2010 a Ynet reporter called the book "one of the most read, talked about, and widely studied in the Haredi street". Shain went on to write four more books, drawing on her personal and teaching experiences.
About ten years before her death, she returned to the United States to be near her children in Adelphia, New Jersey, where she continued to welcome visitors. She died in 2013 at Lakewood Township, New Jersey.
Her children are Rabbi Yisrael Meir Shain, Mrs. Mashi Wilner, and Rabbi Refoel Yitzchak Shain.
Influence
Shain's stories about her childhood, and her viewpoints on teaching, have been quoted by numerous authors.