If there’s a period of time that really encapsulates the type of person Molly Reuben is, it’s probably the week when her second child was born. “I actually took the bar on Tuesday and Wednesday, took all day Thursday to get the house ready and had a baby on Friday.” Wait. What?
Let’s back up for a moment. Judaism has always been a running theme through her life. She went to school at the Phoenix Hebrew Academy, and her mother, Terry Taubman, worked at the JCC. If Taubman’s name seems familiar, it’s because she’s the current executive director of Congregation Beth Israel in Scottsdale, and has been for quite a long time, meaning that Reuben has been surrounded by Judaism since birth. “With all different aspects of my life, I’ve been involved in some way with the Jewish community, whatever organization it is at that point,” Reuben says. After meeting and subsequently marrying Jess Stanlis, Reuben welcomed their son, Benjamin. Then soon after his birth, she started law school, an endeavour that’s so demanding it would seem daunting for anyone, much less someone who just had her first child. But Reuben wasn’t stopped at all. “My husband and I got married and we knew I wanted to go back to school, but we also realized that we aren’t getting any younger,” she explains. “We wanted to have a family, so we did. And people always say, ‘How did you do that?’ You just figure it out.”
For Reuben, that meant treating school just like a 9-to-5 job, but with additional flexibility. That helped her manage the stress of raising a child and school, and has become a general management technique as well. “I don’t know how mothers have a time clock or have specific hours they have to be somewhere or have schedules that change constantly. To me, that’s more of a difficult life than being in school.”
After passing the bar — and having their second child, Ruby — Reuben found herself working with her family. “I’m very lucky,” she says. “I’m working with my stepfather, who’s an attorney, and he has a private practice.” The types of cases they handle tend to deal with family law, but because of his experience with complex custody situations and similar scenarios, he also has the opportunity to represent children and families who deal with abuse or neglect allegations. It’s a rewarding field to be in, because Reuben can help kids in need, while still providing for her own family.
Reuben is also involved in the Anti-Defamation League, and has been for the past few years. “My husband actually participated in the Glass [Leadership Institute] program last year, and he enjoyed it very much,” she says. After her husband ended his participation, she decided to enter the program as well.
What do her duties entail? “Usually once a month they have a class or a meeting or a special lecture. We’ve learned about the different facets of ADL — the education that they do, the investigations that they do — so each month they have different speakers come in or we go visit off-site organizations that the ADL helps or is involved in.” One of the goals of the Glass Leadership Institute is to develop a group of leaders to help advocate ADL, and that’s something that she sees in her future. “I would love to be involved, you know, with my husband and I, our family, in Jewish community programs.” As for the future of their family, they plan on having their kids go down a similar path to her own. “But one of the things [my parents] did well was they really introduced us to all different types of Jews. And like I said, I went to a Hebrew day school that was an Orthodox day school so I felt very comfortable in that setting, and I was bat mitzvahed at a Conservative shul, and my mom started going to a Reform shul, and so I think that that’s really a great thing for me.” This means that where other Jews may feel comfortable only in certain settings or during specific activities, Reuben feels at home no matter where she goes. “It is something that I hope to do for my kids as well, just to show them that there are people that practice Judaism in lots of different ways and no one way is right or wrong, they’re just different ways and whatever you find that works for you.”
What with her role in the ADL, her position at the law firm, the two kids she’s raising and everything else that she has going on, Reuben is quite a busy woman. But whenever she needs help, she can always call upon her family to lend a hand. “I’ve always been a firm believer that it takes a village, and it definitely does,” she says. “My mom helps out a lot, my brother’s here in town, I have another brother and sister who aren’t, but they come and visit, and my mother-in-law — we all pitch in, get the job done.” It’s that type of firm commitment to the family, as well as to the faith, that makes Reuben such an inspirational figure in the community.
