About

Rachel Biale was born in 1952 and raised on Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin, by the bank of the Jordan River. After serving in the Israeli Defense Forces she came to the United States in 1973, earning her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in Jewish History from the University of California Los Angeles and a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University. Rachel is a clinical social worker. She has worked as a therapist specializing in families and young children and has had a parenting counseling practice for over thirty years. She has also worked as a adult Jewish education program director and teacher and as a community organizer.

Her first book, Women and Jewish Law (Schocken, 1984) is considered a groundbreaking book in Jewish Studies and remains in print 35 years after publication. Her newest books are her memoir, Growing Up Below Sea Level: A Kibbutz Childhood, published by Mandel Vilar Press (March 2020), and her parenting advice book, What Now? 2-Minute Tips for Solving Common Parenting Challenges (Koehler Books, June 2020).

Earlier she published three children’s books (as author and illustrator: one in Hebrew, two in English): The Old Clock (1975), We Are Moving: A Let’s Make a Book about It Book (1996) and My Pet Died: Let’s Make a Book About It Book (2004). Rachel also wrote a parenting advice column for the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish community newspaper.

Rachel is also an artist: she writes and illuminates Jewish marriage contracts (Ketubot) and has illustrated her children’s books and her parenting advice book.

Rachel is a seasoned public speaker. She has taught university courses and presented lectures at community centers, adult education programs, and Jewish cultural institutions in the US, Israel and Europe. She resides with her husband in Berkeley, California.