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Name: Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum

Occupation: Rabbi of String of Pearls Reconstructionist Congregation of Princeton

Address: Swarthmore, Pa.

Family: Married one-and-a-half years to Dr. Louis Friedler, a math professor at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pa. Three sons: Ben Roman, a resident in neurotautology married to Katharine Powell, a professional actress. They live in New York City and are expecting their first child. Matthew Roman, an architect living in New Haven, Conn. David Speer recently graduated from college and is serving as an AmeriCorps intern for Jewish Family and Children Service in Princeton. Sister Randa Kirshbaum is a managing editor for a music publishing house in New York City and brother Paul Kirshbaum is a grants administrator at a nanotechnology laboratory, married to Eva, an accountant. They have a son and live outside Santa Barbara, Calif. Parents are Bernard and Rhona Kirshbaum who live in Philadelphia.

Community activities: Member of the Princeton-Bucks County Board of Rabbis and Princeton Clergy Association. On the National Rabbinic Task Force on Domestic Violence for Jewish Women's International. On the organizing committee of J Street in Central New Jersey. On Sunday Feb. 28, will begin a series on Jewish storytelling for children at the Princeton Public Library and starting with story of Purim.

Hobbies: "I just finished restoring a floor loom and I'm working it now to weaving tallit. I played the cello professionally in England and occasionally play. I also love to garden."

Self-portrait: "I'm passionate about Jewish learning and sharing our traditions and love of justice, humor, and inquiry. I'm pessimistic optimist. We believe in teshuva and Jewish history has made us aware of suffering and cruelty in the world, as well as a real sense of hope despite our acquaintance of suffering in our history."

Motto: " 'You must not be invisible.' You mustn't be invisible when you see a need. Taken from Devarim."

Greatest accomplishment: "Raising three boys to manhood and menschhood."

Bad habits: "Staying up too late to watch the figure skating events at the Olympics."

Favorite TV: "Phillies baseball. They play with heart and they are really special."

Favorite food: "Dark chocolate."

Best childhood memory: "Walking along the old (pre-casino) Atlantic City Boardwalk and trying to understand my grandparents' animated Yiddish conversations. We were sent to a Yiddish folk school and I did understand most of those conversations.

People don't know that I... "Used to be a co-owner of a dairy farm in the Missouri Ozarks and got up at 5 a.m. to crack the ice off the pond so our heifers could drink. We had a milking herd of 40. Once the local paper, the Springfield Missouri Daily News, came out and took a picture of me sitting in the field playing my cello with the cows in the background to accompany an article on the farm. It was not my idea -- it was a publicity stunt. We wanted the publicity because we wanted customers to know we were making cheese and selling through a cooperative."

Last book I read: " 'On Beauty,' by Zaide Smith. It's fiction with a unique reflection on beauty."

The biggest asset in the local Jewish communities: "The relatively small size and creativity of our communal shared institutions. It's allowed us to develop a kosher kitchen and to present a program called New Tools for the Rabbis Tool Box on Domestic Abuse Prevention on March 18 to the Board of Rabbis. For instance, the old thinking if a woman came to you with an abuse situation, the pastoral response would be to recommend couples counseling. The new thinking is couples counseling will make things more unsafe for the woman. So we want to share this new thinking and new tools to be used in counseling."

If I had more time, I would: "Take more walks with my husband. I would like to get involved in prison chaplaincy. I would visit my far flung friends and family scattered across this country and Israel."