One of the ways you can identify a couple who are truly good, decent, community-minded people is that when you ask if you can write about them, they are shocked and insist that they are hardly worth the attention. When you hear their life stories, however, you see immediately that they are role models in many ways.
Robert and Susan Grosberg of West Orange are two such people.
Robert received semicha from RIETS at Yeshiva University and has made his living outside the rabbinate, but his erudition in Torah is a mainstay of his life. When he lived on Long Island he gave shiurim in shul and taught a shiur on the LIRR on his way into work. In West Orange, he teaches a weekly Gemara shiur on Monday nights and prior to COVID he taught the shiur twice a week and also offered a Mishneh Brurah class in his shul, Congregation Ohr Torah. He gives periodic talks on other topics in shul and also leins there often. Additionally, he serves as chairman of the ritual committee of the shul which, he remarks, has been ‘very challenging’ during the COVID-19 era.
In between teaching Torah and serving the kehilla, Robert has led a storied professional career. He started as a computer programmer at Con Edison and worked his way up to become CIO of several companies, such as Coca-Cola Entertainment Sector (Columbia Pictures, Merv Griffin Enterprises, Embassy Television), Olympia & York Real Estate and White & Case Law (an international law firm). While at Coca-Cola, he managed a bi-coastal technology group, with offices in New York City and Burbank, California, which was credited with, among other things, creating the program that tracked the questions used in the Jeopardy TV program. More recently, he served as director of career services, and currently serves as the executive director of administration, for the Touro College Graduate School of Technology.
Robert and Susan met on Frumster (today called JWed) in 2012 and married in 2013, a remarriage for both of them. They have 10 married children between them, who live along the East Coast from Baltimore, Maryland, to Waterbury, Connecticut. They have 39 grandchildren.
Susan is a physical therapist who worked for many years in various settings such as rehabilitation centers, outpatient hospital departments and clinics, assisted living facilities and home care agencies. Her first job out of school, and her training ground, was at the main facility of Kessler Institute in West Orange, which is very near to where she now finds herself living, after being away for 32 years. For the past 16 years, she has had her own practice, Rendsburg Rehabilitation LLC. She prefers the special individualized attention she can devote to clients, one on one, in her outpatient work in their homes. She specializes in physical therapy for geriatic patients and takes great pride in her work, finding it quite rewarding to impact people’s lives for the better as they get older.
Susan became a baalat teshuva in high school, after attending YU-sponsored Torah leadership seminars, and previously lived in Buffalo, Binghamton and Lower Merion Township, a suburb of Philadelphia. Susan is an active member of Congregation Ohr Torah as well, where she is a member of the Sisterhood, attends many of their events and participates in online shiurim.
Robert and Susan share a love and passion for Israel and have traveled there many times.
They were happy to answer questions about their superfan nomination.
Do you read The Jewish Link every week?
Yes, faithfully.
What are your favorite sections of the paper?
We have many favorite sections—op-eds and letters to the editor, following discussions and debates, contentious and non-contentious. We find it all very entertaining and interesting. Many of the columns spark our interest: education, history by Alex Grobman, health section, financial section, legal analysis (especially Stephen Loeb’s columns), divrei Torah by Rabbi Haim Jachter, Rabbi Moshe Taragin, the “Take a Hike” column (we have followed a few of the recommended hike suggestions for day trips during COVID time) and the schools section. (Susan: I particularly look for RPRY because that’s where my eldest granddaughter attends first grade.)
What does the paper mean to you?
We appreciate that the Link keeps us engaged in the goings-on and news in the Modern Orthodox world, locally and beyond. We enjoy the halachic discussions, especially during this time of COVID, and appreciate how the Link has kept us informed about the implications of how the pandemic has impacted our religious practices.
Has the paper made a difference in your life?
Yes, without a question. Especially during COVID time, sans family and friends as company, The Jewish Link has enriched our Shabbat table discussions.
By Harry Glazer
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