A Merger for the Rabbi and the Labor Leader
Randi Weingarten and Rabbi Sharon Anne Kleinbaum are to be married March 25 at La Marina, a restaurant in New York. Judge Michelle Schreiber of the New York City Housing Court, is to officiate, with Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, the president of Hebrew College, leading the religious ceremony, which will include the signing of the ketubah.
Ms. Weingarten (left), 60, is the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has headquarters in Washington. She graduated from Cornell and received a law degree from Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
She is the daughter of Gabriel Weingarten of Suffern, N.Y., and the late Edith Appelbaum Weingarten.
Rabbi Kleinbaum, 58, is the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Simhat Torah in New York, a synagogue with a significant number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender congregants. She graduated from Barnard College and from Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncott, Pa.
She is the daughter of Josephine Leve Kleinbaum of Teaneck, N.J., and the late Max M. Kleinbaum.
In the mid-1990s, Rabbi Kleinbaum and Ms. Weingarten knew each other peripherally.
“We were two lesbians in New York fighting for different things,” Ms. Weingarten said. “We liked each other. We had good banter. It wasn’t as if there were a lot of high-profile gay women who were active in leadership roles. I thought she was fun, witty and smart.”It continued that way until 2006. Both were at the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner, when Rabbi Kleinbaum asked Ms. Weingarten to speak at the Gay Pride Shabbat service.
“I’d just turned 50, I’d never publicly come out and said, ‘I’m a lesbian,’” Ms. Weingarten said. “Sharon allowed me to see myself as who I was. It shifted my thinking that it wasn’t simply about having a gay pride speaker. It was about shifting me. I was very moved by it.”
Rabbi Kleinbaum recalls the “ask” a little differently.
“She’s one of the most significant labor leaders in America,” Rabbi A Merger for the Rabbi and the Labor Leader - The New York Times: