Rockefellers
And Shabbat

Prominent couple talk about the Jewish, aith
and philanthropic giving.

mutual interest in environmental con-
servation, and they have drawn on
RACHEL POMERANCE
respect for the environment in raising
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
their two boys — one a high school
junior and another a freshman at
New York
Princeton University in New Jersey.
earing a plain navy suit and
In their Vermont home, where they
loafers, radiating a ruddy,
grow their own vegetables, they once
unmade-up glow and enun-
spent two weeks living as if it were the
ciating each word with'formality, she
1840s. After one son carved out the
seems every bit a Rockefeller — with
yoke of a log to carry butter, he found
a twist.
softer wood in the log's center.
"We do do Shabbat on Fridays,"
"I realize the deeper you go, the
Eileen Rockefeller Growald says.
more heart you will find," the son told
"We do do shehechianus after the
his mother, who realized that the les-
first tomatoes of the season," she adds,
son in hard work had paid off.
referring to the Jewish blessing over
In raising her children, Rockefeller
something new.
Growald tried to soften her family's
The daughter of David Rockefeller
saying, engraved in New York City's
long has rejected the strictures of reli-
Rockefeller Center: "Every opportuni-
gion.
But in her marriage
0 to Paul
b
ty an obligation, every right a respon-
Growald, who has Michigan roots, she
sibility, every passion a duty."
has "expanded to Judaism," as she
Yet she passed on her family's phi-
likes to say.
losophy
of dividing income in equal
"I feel very blessed to have married
thirds, saving one, spending one and
Paul and in a sense to have married
giving one away. The effort to fend off
into the richness of this culture," she
a sense of entitlement seems to have
told several members of Jewish family
worked. Their college son once told
foundations that gathered recently in
them that he was the only one of his
Baltimore for the annual conference of
college friends who paid his own
the Jewish Funders Network.
phone bill, his parents said.
In one of their first public talks
The extended Rockefeller family,
about their marriage, the couple
which numbers about 125 people,
imparted some of the intergenerational
meets twice a year, and they have
customs of America's most philanthrop-
strategies for connecting the genera-
ic families. They also discussed how
tions.
they teach the values of philanthropy
One such approach is intergenera-
and responsibility to their children.
tional dialogue, when a family mem-
In an interview with JTA, the couple
ber may express him or herself with-
also shared their thoughts on a marriage
out fear of judgment. Another ritual,
that blends two distinct bac rounds.
called passages, allows one family
member to introduce another who has
The Beginning
experienced a significant event, like a
Growald, 57, and Rockefeller
birthday.
Growald, 53, met in 1980 through a
In their immediate family, the
Growalds have drawn on Jewish
rituals.
Above: Paul Growald and Eileen
"I've really. loved the ritual of Friday
Rockefeller Growald in Moose, Wyo.,
night
Shabbat with our boys,"
in the spring of 2003

W

Growald Rockefeller says.
"We haven't done Havdalah as con-
sistently," she adds, but when they do,
they borrow a tradition of Growald's
brother, dousing the candle in a dish
of vodka and setting the liquor on fire.
The family turns off the lights to
watch the flame "dance in the dark,"
Rockefeller Growald says.
The family members then race to

"I feel very blessed to
have married Paul,
and in a sense to have
married into the richness
of this culture."

— Eileen Rockefeller Growald

say "Bye bye Shabbat" first. "It's play-
ful, and I like closure," Rockefeller
Growald says. "It puts a very nice
sense of closure to the Sabbath."

On Faith

The couple believes faith has been
critical for sustaining their marriage.
"Religion as a spiritual value in raising
our children was a bindinc, force in
our marriage, and it continues to be,"
Rockefeller Growald says.
The family belongs to Ohavi Zedek
Synagogue, the oldest and largest shul
in Vermont.
Its rabbi, Joshua Chasan, who was
ordained by the Jewish Theological
Seminary in_Nei.v York, says the family
has belonged to the shul for about 10
years. Growald is on the synagogue's
board.
"They've had two children in our
religious school and two wonderful
bar mitzvahs," Chasan says. "Both
kids are real mensches."
Growald's background wasn't like
his wife's: His parents escaped

Germany in 1934 and eventually set-
tled in Kalamazoo.
"I grew up in a place where there
were very few Jews," Growald says.
One of the first questions he was
commonly asked as a boy was which
church he attended. "I at times
referred to the Jewish church," he
adds.
One parr Rockefeller and one part
Jew, the couple understands the feel-
ing of being prejudged. "We shared
that value, that experience of being
different," Rockefeller Growald says.
Each family seemed to accept the
couple.
Rockefeller Growald says she was
raised believing that spirituality was
found in nature. Her father cared only
that her husband believed in God.
"My mother said, 'You'll never be a
Jew,"' Rockefeller Growald says, which
she took to mean that she would resist
organized religion as her mother did.
The only concern for Growald's par-
ents was the idea that the Rockefeller
influence would lead to spoiled grand-
children. "That fear was allayed when
they saw how we were bringing them
up," Growald says.
The couple continues the
Rockefeller tradition of charity.
"Making a contribution to the world
is ultimately the most satisfying way
to live one's life. It's not making or
spending money or gaining power,
Growald says.
Growald is on the board of the
Rockefeller Family Fund, which does-
n't donate to religious causes.
Rockefeller Growald is the founding
chair of the Rockefeller Philanthropy
Advisers, which advises philanthropies
throughout the world.
Asked if her Jewish experience plays
a role in her work, she says that she
draws on the value of service, which
"is common to both Judaism and
Rockefellerism."

"

4/28
2005

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