Betty Reuben, a hero of service in Sacramento’s Jewish community, dies at age 100
Betty Reuben, whose vast volume of volunteer work and commitment to helping vulnerable groups graced Sacramento and its Jewish community for more than half a century, died this week. She was 100.
Reuben died peacefully at home early Monday, according to family and Congregation B’nai Israel, a synagogue to which she became one of the first women elected to the board of trustees, in the late 1960s.
Just one item on a sprawling résumé of community service, Reuben became the chairperson of the Committee of Concern, later called Women Feed the Hungry, a group of Congregation B’nai Israel members dedicated to addressing hunger.
In the mid-1980s, Reuben and other committee members co-founded Touch of Shabbat, an organization delivering soup, challah and applesauce to those in the Sacramento region who had AIDS or were HIV-positive, regardless of religion or background. Reuben led the effort for more than three decades, said Carolyn Reuben Green, one of Reuben’s three daughters.
Reuben also served meals at Loaves and Fishes, volunteered at schools, tutored elementary students in reading, was a co-Girl Scout leader and served for 13 years as chair of public affairs for the National Council of Jewish Women’s California chapter.
In the latter role, she founded a subcommittee called Family Shalom, now known as NCJW Sacramento’s advocacy and education program, that provides resources for Jewish women victimized by domestic violence. The subcommittee also collaborates with other local organizations on the issues of elder abuse and human trafficking.
“My mother lived her values,” Green said.
For her efforts with Touch of Shabbat and Family Shalom, Sacramento County’s Board of Supervisors in 2011 formally recognized Reuben as a “Hero of Human Service.”
“Betty Reuben personified everything good in our Jewish and Sacramento communities and in life,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg wrote in a statement on social media. “She was a beautiful soul, committed to overcoming injustice, poverty, and the ills of the world.
“She did so in a way that inspired confidence and kindness. I will miss her dearly.”
Green, 76, along with younger sister Debra Reuben, 66, and brother Steven Carr Reuben, 74, spoke of their mother’s ability to juggle all of her roles and responsibilities with a deep enjoyment of life.
“I think all of our lives, we’ve marveled at her as a model of living,” Debra Reuben said.
For 20 years, up until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Betty Reuben participated twice a week in an exercise class designed for seniors. “She was sharp mentally in a way that put the rest of us to shame,” and was a “voracious” reader, active in two book clubs, Debra said.
Betty Reuben was proud of creating Touch of Shabbat and Family Shalom, but Green said she was most proud of her four children: Debra, Steven, Carolyn and her eldest daughter, Ronna Mallios, 79.
“She did everything for us, everything for our children, everything for our grandchildren, everything for her nieces and nephew,” Debra said. “She remembered everything that was going on with everybody’s lives.”
Born Sept. 27, 1922, in Flint, Michigan, to British parents who crossed the Atlantic a year earlier, Reuben moved west in the early 1940s with her first husband, Harry Schnider, after he enlisted to serve in World War II and was sent to Southern California for training. Reuben returned to Flint to work at a factory during the war, after which the couple settled in Santa Monica.
Schnider died of a sudden heart attack 13 years later, leaving Reuben a widow at age 31, with young Steven and Carolyn.
Betty met Jack Reuben, also a widowed parent, at a party. They married in 1955; Betty Reuben adopted Jack’s daughter Ronna, and Jack adopted Carolyn and Steven, before Betty gave birth to Debra.
The family moved to Sacramento in 1965 after Jack Reuben earned a promotion with Caltrans. The Reubens bought a ranch in South Land Park.
Reuben had foregone college to marry Schnider, but after being challenged by Jack to take a single college course at age 47, she went on to earn a master’s degree in education at Sacramento State, Green said. By 1978, Betty had become an adjunct professor of early childhood education at Sacramento City College.
“Clearly if my mother had been born in a different era, she would have been the rabbi in the family,” said Steven Reuben, rabbi emeritus of Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation in Pacific Palisades.
“What was inspiring to all of us was her deep commitment to engaging and being there, and feeling like what you say and what you do and who you are matters. Therefore, you have an obligation to lift up others who are in need in the community.”
Green is currently in Los Angeles working on a documentary focused on Reuben. She started making the documentary 18 years ago with the goal of answering one question about her mother: “How did she do it?”
“I just think that she’s such a model for successful women, that I wanted to share it with the world, and with our family who don’t know her,” said Green, who has four grandchildren younger than 10.
Reuben remained politically active through her entire adult life. She supported Dave Jones, a Democrat and California’s insurance commissioner from 2011 to 2019, in his run for state Senate last year and, at age 99, making phone calls on behalf of his campaign. Jones was defeated by former Sacramento City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby.
She even sent postcards to residents of Florida and Georgia, Green said, urging them to vote in their most recent elections.
“She never thought of herself as old,” Green said. “It didn’t apply to her.”
Reuben was preceded in death in January 2021 by husband Jack, who died at 99. She is survived by daughters Ronna Mallios, Carolyn Reuben Green and Debra Reuben; son Steven Carr Reuben; sister Joan Helft; cousin Andrea Slade; 10 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.
Betty Reuben will be laid to rest with Jack in a private ceremony in West Los Angeles, where her extended family is buried.
A memorial service will be held in Sacramento at Congregation B’nai Israel at a date to be determined.
