By Evelyn Herwitz
From the time she was 10 years old, Ruth Perlman Smith
P'59, BJEd'64, knew she wanted to be a social worker. Growing up in Mattapan, helping to care for her disabled father, she understood from an early age the difference one individual can make in easing the life of another. But it was a grade school book report that crystallized her career goals. "I read a biography of Jane Adams and her work at Hull House," says Smith. "That was it. I decided this is what I want to do when I grow up."
Smith has made good on that personal commitment—and then some. Not only has she built a successful professional and academic career in social work, specializing in helping individuals with disabilities, but also she has advanced the profession. And she has done so in a way that melds her two worldviews—one shaped by the intensely Jewish neighborhoods of post-war Mattapan and the tight-knit Hebrew College community, and the other forged over a period of 30 years as a practicing social worker in healthcare, social services and special education.
It was hearing Dr. David Gordis, then at the outset of his tenure as Hebrew College president in 1993, discuss his vision for the College that got Smith thinking about how to blend Jewish values and cultural studies with social work training. "He said he wanted to reach out to those not normally involved with Hebrew College," says Smith. She approached President Gordis and suggested soliciting one of the area's graduate schools of social work to see if such a course could be initiated.
That idea—with the support and involvement of Provost Barry Mesch and input from fellow social workers and Hebrew College Overseers Enid Shapiro
Me'ah '01, Adena Geller
P'58, BJEd'62 and Ruth Wolf, along with Sonya Michaelson—eventually blossomed into what is now a joint degree/certificate program between Simmons College Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) and Hebrew College. Now in its fourth year, the program enables students to earn a Master of Social Work from Simmons and a
Certificate in Jewish Communal and Clinical Social Work from Hebrew College. Smith, who is a lecturer at Simmons GSSW, teaches one of the curriculum's foundation courses,
Social Work and the Jewish Client. Central issues include how influences such as Jewish community, Jewish education, cultural background and personal family history affect the formation of Jewish identity.
"For me, making a shidduch between social work and Hebrew College was natural. The values, the issues, the questions of identity are the same for both."
For Smith herself, Hebrew College played a key role in shaping her Jewish identity and priorities. Following her Hebrew school friends from Temple Beth Hillel in Mattapan, Smith entered the Prozdor in 1955. Though the coursework was a bit of a struggle—"I was not a very good student until graduate school," she admits—the friendships she built were lifelong. "It was truly our home away from home, five days a week," she says.
A passionate Zionist, Smith also found time to get involved with Jewish youth groups, including USY and Young Judea—commencing what was to become a lifelong commitment to Jewish organizations. Four years of Prozdor led to five more years earning a Bachelor of Jewish Education (1964); Smith attended Boston University during part of that time and earned her bachelor's in sociology.
Studying for a year in Israel as part of her Hebrew College degree program, Smith began to think seriously about making aliyah. But she decided first to save some money and gain academic credentials and experience in social work. So she moved to New York City and soon found a position training under a social worker on the faculty of Adelphi University, who encouraged her to apply.
Her first day on the job, life took an unexpected turn. "I walked into the JCC Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn and saw this cute social worker named Howard who'd graduated from Wurzweiler. That was the end of plans for aliyah!" says Smith. Five months later, in February of 1967, the two were married.
In the more than three decades since, Smith has built an extensive professional resume, specializing in working with individuals who have disabilities. An LICSW with a PhD in Education from Boston College, she has worked as director of social work for Lesley College Lab Schools, director of social work and then government affairs liaison for Franciscan Children's Hospital, a consultant for the Massachusetts Department for Education and a clinical policy analyst for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Currently she is president of her own consulting firm, director of social work for the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) Shriver Center and assistant professor in the UMMS Department of Pediatrics. During this very intensive period of professional growth, Smith also found time to raise two daughters: Sara
P'89, now 31, and Jen
P'91, 28.
Both girls attended Prozdor, which was the beginning of Smith's own return to Hebrew College. Between Alumni Association Cochair Bob Feingold
P'58 inviting her to a class reunion and former board chairman Norm Spack
P'60 asking her to chair a Prozdor committee, she found herself back with her old Hebrew College family, helping to found and then co-lead the Prozdor alumni association (now combined with the Hebrew College alumni association) and eventually meeting with David Gordis, who sparked her interest in the interface of her two worlds.
"Social work looks at the client in context. What are the environmental issues as well as the emotional, internal issues that affect the individual, and how do you reconcile these two?" says Smith. "For me, making a
shidduch between social work and Hebrew College was natural. The values, the issues, the questions of identity are the same for both."
Smith's Hebrew College connections led to another programmatic innovation. As a member of both the Special Needs Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston (BJE) and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies' Committee on Disabilities, she advocated that Jewish educators should acquire the skills necessary to teach special needs students. Working with her former Prozdor classmate Danny Margolis
P'58, HC'63, now executive director of the BJE, President Gordis and Dr. Harvey Shapiro, Dean of the Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education, she facilitated a dialogue that ultimately led to the College's offering a Certificate in Jewish Special Education—designed to train Hebrew school and day school teachers to address special education needs in the classroom.
"As many of us get older, there is a tendency to want to go back to what was meaningful in our lives at an earlier time," says Smith, a long-standing philanthropic supporter of Hebrew College and a dedicated member of its President's Circle and Board of Overseers. "I'm one of those people who is absolutely committed to Jewish education as a way of maintaining continuity. David Gordis's vision gave me the opportunity to bring my two worlds together."
Photograph by Ben Harmon
back to top
