Rebecca L. Lubetkin

Rebecca L. Lubetkin, who revolutionized education starting in the 1970s, advancing the passage of Title IX and of NJ statutes to eliminate the laws, regulations, policies and practices that limited students based on gender, race, and national origin, died on November 19, 2023.

The daughter of Abraham and Jessica D. Levin, she grew up in Millburn and later lived in South Orange and Mountain Lakes.

A graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, she completed her graduate work in political science at Rutgers. She spent her career in academia at Rutgers, advancing from instructor in 1961 to full professor and, finally, to emerita professor upon her retirement in 2000.

An early feminist, prior to her Rutgers employment, Lubetkin led a team that filed hundreds of successful complaints in the NJ Division on Civil Rights, resulting in all schools being required to increase dramatically their athletics opportunities for girls, as well as to make all courses available to both boys and girls.

In 1975, she founded Rutgers’ Consortium for Educational Equity, which she directed for 25 years. Originally serving New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, her work expanded to the entire country. She also served as assistant director for equity of Rutgers Center for Mathematics, Science and Computer Education, enabling schools to achieve dramatic improvements in girls’ performance, eliminating the long-standing gender gap in STEM fields.

Lubetkin was a writer, editor, and publisher of multiple publications to advance change. She was one of the earliest experts to alert educators to the crisis in boys’ educational underachievement, and to bullying and harassment issues.

Lubetkin testified several times before the U.S. Congress, and served on national advisory committees on women in science, mathematics, and technology. During the 1980s, as part of the NYC Chancellor’s Task Force on Sex Equity, Lubetkin led the team desegregating the 18 vocational high schools that had been restricted from the outset on the basis of sex.

From 1992 to 1995, she served as the executive officer of the International Association on Gender and Science and Technology. She also provided guidance in exhibit planning and educational programming during the initial design of Liberty Science Center.

From 1993-2018, Lubetkin was a founder and producer of the weekly television show, “New Directions for Women,” which aired in many outlets of the country. She became host of the show in 2007. More than 300 shows were produced, and are archived in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. She served as a longtime member of the Holocaust Council of Greater MetroWest. She also served on the National Board of Veteran Feminists of America as it developed a video archive of interviews with hundreds of Second Wave feminists who transformed society in the last half of the twentieth century.

Lubetkin was the recipient of numerous awards, including the First Recognition Award from the New Jersey College and University Coalition on Women’s Education; she was selected for inclusion in the volume Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-75. Her story is included in the video archive of the Veteran Feminists of America and in Rutgers’ Oral History Collection.

A long-time member and co-chair of the Holocaust Council, she also served as a member of the Leadership Council for Holocaust Survivors of the Jewish Federation. She had one of the earliest Saturday morning Bat Mitzvahs in a conservative synagogue in 1951. A 42-year member of Congregation Beth El in South Orange, NJ (1970-2012), she was a leader in expanding the role of women in prayer and ritual; she was later a member of Congregation Kol Rina.

Survivors include her beloved husband of nearly 60 years, Daniel Lubetkin, and daughters, Julie Lubetkin (Marc Fagel), of San Carlos, CA, and Dr. Erica Lubetkin (Kenneth Drake) of Manhattan, NYC. She was the loving grandmother of Joshua Daniel Fagel (Elena Bauer), Alyssa Sophia Fagel, Ilana Rose Drake, and Ari Daniel Drake. She was the twin sister of Dr. Henry Levin (Pilar Soler), as well as sister of Pauline Gold, Rachel Rose Siwoff (Dr. Ronald), Dr. Sarah J. Hecht, and Treasure Cohen (Richard), and aunt to over 60 nieces and nephews.

The family will be receiving friends for Rebecca on Tuesday, November 21, 2023 from 10:15 AM to 10:45 AM at Bernheim-Apter-Kreitzman Suburban Funeral Chapel, 68 Old Short Hills Road, Livingston, NJ 07039. A funeral service will occur Tuesday, November 21, 2023 at 11:00 AM. A burial will occur Tuesday, November 21, 2023 at 12:45 PM at Mount Lebanon Cemetery, 189 Gill Lane, Woodbridge, NJ.

Contributions in her memory can go to Unchained at Last, to eliminate child and forced marriage, www.unchainedatlast.org/donate or to Women of the Wall, to secure women’s equality and religious pluralism at the Western Wall, www.womenofthewall.org.il/donate

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.bernheimapterkreitzman.com for the Lubetkin family.