Bob Bahr ● Atlanta Jewish Times
“…A featured speaker at the same conference was Talli Rosenbaum, an American-born psychotherapist and certified sex therapist, who works with Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and in Beit Shemesh.
Now
two years later she has just written a book with another sex therapist, who is
an Orthodox rabbi and graduate of Yeshiva University in New York. The book, “I
Am For My Beloved: A Guide to Enhanced Intimacy for Married Couples,” went on
sale Nov. 14 in Israel and will be published in the United States early next
year.
The emphasis of the book is less on the physical side of sex, the how-to of
sexual performance, than about the need to cultivate intimacy, Rosenbaum said.
“Many people in the Orthodox community don’t have an easy and comfortable way to communicate with issues having to do with intimacy, emotional intimacy as well as physical intimacy, and we felt that this book is very necessary.”
But the book as published is not the book that she and her co-author, Rabbi David Ribner started to write. Despite the amount of shame or guilt about sex that some in the Orthodox community here and in Israel share, the book set out to cultivate a positive awareness of how knowledge and understanding can enhance the bonds that a couple develops.
“We really see that sexual intimacy and emotional intimacy and how that is experienced is very much related to the relationship itself,” Rosenbaum emphasized. “We view it in a way that appreciates the core values of Jewish marriage, a marriage about mutuality, balance and harmony.”
Both Rosenbaum and Rabbi Ribner are scheduled to speak next month at the annual international meeting in New York of NEFESH International, a network of Orthodox mental health professionals.”
Jewish Book Review 