Barbara Friedman isn’t just a part of Beit T’Shuvah—she is Beit T’Shuvah. For 18 years, her sharp wit and unflinching honesty have filled the halls, reminding everyone that love doesn’t have to be sugar coated to be real. Barbara is a force of nature—a maternal figure who protects, supports, and pushes everyone around her to be better. She has been the person to call when life feels overwhelming, the one who makes you laugh when you need it most, and the rock that helps steady a shaky foundation. For residents and staff alike, Barbara isn’t just a coworker or mentor; she’s the tough, fiercely loving mom they never knew they needed. Her absence will leave a hole that no one can fill, but her impact will forever shape the heart and soul of Beit T’Shuvah.
For Barbara, life began with the idyllic charm of a New Jersey suburb, surrounded by a loving family and the unmistakable rhythm of her father’s entertainment career in New York City. From the outside, hers was a picturesque childhood—an “Ozzy and Harriet” tableau that left no room for darkness. But like so many of us, adolescence began whispering a different story.
High school was a sea of cool cliques, and Barbara found herself wanting to swim in the waters of the big fish. A friendship with a bold, larger-than-life classmate led to her first act of rebellion: skipping school to go shopping. “In 50 years, will this day even matter?” her friend had asked. At the time, Barbara couldn’t know the weight those choices would carry decades later or that they would in fact matter a great deal.
In college during the ‘70s, Barbara traded her suburban good-girl image for bell-bottoms, long hair, and a growing appetite for counterculture rebellion. A hippie. Barbara was a hippie. The drugs were “recreational,” she told herself—first weed, then Quaaludes and sangria. She kept up appearances, even graduating with a degree in elementary education. But by the time she was teaching, addiction had already woven itself into her life, its web invisible even to her.
Marriage came next, a partnership she described as “young and stupid,” marked by her husband’s escalating drug dealing and their shared descent into harder substances. “He would come home from his job on Wall Street with a briefcase in one hand and a case of drugs in the other.” Around the age of 27, after walking in on her husband shooting heroin, she decided she had had enough and filed for divorce.
At this point, Barbara’s line in the sand kept shifting. Weekends bled into weekdays when Thursdays became fair game because “Friday was a bullshit day at work anyways.” I’ll remember, Mrs. HR Director.
Soon, she had an excuse to drink every day.
At this same time, somehow, she got a master’s degree in remedial reading. That brought her from school to school teaching kids who had trouble reading.
Eventually, after a car accident left her with a herniated disk, she was prescribed pain pills. She was in love. This started her long and illustrious career of doctor shopping (going from doctor’s office to doctor’s office getting more and more pills prescribed). “I had no social life. I had some friends, but I was much more interested in going home, sitting there, getting loaded, and doing a crossword puzzle.” That is when Barbara got the bright idea of calling in her prescriptions for herself. She had overheard the nurses do it enough times—how hard could it be “At some point, I decided to cut out the middle man.” She went to the pharmacy and there was a cop outside. “Is he here for me.?” He was. The minute she picked up the pills, she was in cuffs.
Over the next several years, she did this over and over and over again. The unraveling was spectacular. Pills. Arrests. Probation. More pills. More arrests. More probation. Barbara looks back on one specific time when her father picked her up from jail, “Don’t you think about all of us who love you?” her father asked. Barbara’s response was haunting, “It has nothing to do with love. I have a problem.”
In 1983, Barbara went to her first treatment center which was inside of a mental institution. When that sobriety didn’t stick, she went to her second one. Once released, she went to 12-step meetings, she did the steps, “I thought I was doing fine.” Then, her back went out again. When she went to the doctor, without a second thought, she asked for pain pills. “I was gone again. Gone for years.” So, she ran from her life and moved in with her brother and his wife in California.
When visiting her mother who had bronchitis, Barbara decided to sample a bit of her cough syrup. “That was my true love.” The doctor shopping began again and, trust me, she was a doctor shopaholic. “I didn’t look like a drug addict. I even had a doctor say to me once, ‘You know, I’m gonna give it to you but I have to be so careful. There are these people that come in and ask for this that are drug addicts.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding! People do that?!?!’”
The doctor’s visits became too much for her. The hamster wheel of it all. So, Barbara finally decided to get off it…and just go ahead and steal the prescription pad. In, what may not have been he most clever criminal moment, she went to the same pharmacy every day with a new prescription. Outside that pharmacy, sat an unmarked car. Eventually, the man in that car arrested her and she was sent right back to jail…for the final time.
Sitting in a holding cell, sick from withdrawals, she was visited by a woman from the Jewish Committee for Personal Service. That meeting led her to Beit T’Shuvah—a place that, like Barbara, was just starting to find itself. “I was the oldest person there,” she recalls with a laugh, “but I went back to being a rule follower. You could eat off the floors when I was house monitor.”
The shift didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t until her third or fourth month that Barbara experienced what she calls her “spiritual awakening.” Maybe it was the programed tailored to her or maybe it was the cursing gangster rabbi, either way, she had a moment of clarity. Sitting on a bunk bed, worn down by years of chaos, she thought, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.”
Barbara stayed at Beit T’Shuvah as a resident for 11 months, rebuilding her life one piece at a time. She mended relationships with her family, found a sense of purpose, and discovered her true self. Eventually, she joined the staff, becoming Rabbi Mark’s assistant, then a development associate, and finally, the Director of Human Resources.
Today, December 20, 2024, after 18 years working at Beit T’Shuvah, Barbara is retiring—a milestone that, is absolutely undeniable. As she steps into this new chapter, she reflects on the community she helped build. “This place is unique because everyone here cares. It’s not just a job—it’s a passion. That’s what makes it special.”
Barbara is leaving behind a legacy of resilience, love, and unwavering dedication to Beit T’Shuvah’s mission. And while she may no longer walk the halls every day, her spirit will always be part of the foundation. Barbara is the best of us and for anyone who has crossed paths with her, there is no doubt that Beit T’Shuvah wouldn’t be the same without her.
Beit T’Shuvah is a family because of the hard work Barbara has put in to keep it that way. For many of us, who still have fractured relationships with our families, she is our guiding light, our maternal figure, our person to call home. “I was getting high through my childbearing years so I don’t have my own kids. This is my family. These are my kids…and I know I’m a pain in the ass mom sometimes, but I’m going to miss them all.”
Barbara, words cannot express how proud of you we all are. I can speak for the entire BTS staff when I say that we cannot wait for her to enjoy the white sand beaches of your retirement, but remember what we say here, “If you don’t come back to visit…you come back to work here for another 18 years!”
While the mission of Beit T’Shuvah will continue, it would have never survived without you. So, from the bottom of my heart, the hearts of all 91 of your children, and everyone whose lives you have helped save over the last 18 years: thank you. Now ride off into the sunset towards the life you have always deserved.