Shalom! You are probably here because you seek entrance into the Rachel Goldberg Fan Club. Well, this is not like all of those other fan clubs where you just fill out a form and send in your twenty bucks. If you know about Rachel, you will understand...

First, a brief biography on Rachel:

Rachel was the last of seven children born into a poor family in Battalou, Missouri in 1963. Her father had a dismal job in the county's only remaining coal mine, and her mother worked part-time as a teacher's aide in a school for developmentally disabled children. It was clear that the opportunities in this town were bleak, so when Rachel graduated from high school, she and her best friend Sarah moved to New York City with the hope of getting into acting.

Rachel and Sarah soon learned the meaning of the word competition as there were many experienced folks participating in the auditions. For months, neither of them had any luck scoring anything better than simple bit parts in Aron's Show, Coming Goings, Metronome, and Painted Pictures, work which merely supplemented their restaurant jobs. As their interest in breaking into acting waned, Rachel got a job at a very classy expensive restaurant. It was a job that she really liked, and it was there that she met Adrian Gomez, also known as "The Hairy One."

Adrian is a fellow who looks a bit rough on the outside, but inside he is unusually kind and generous. He is also well educated in the arts and has actually worked in the entertainment industry, but he had become disenchanted with it after finding that only the most shallow works become accepted by the mainstream, and seeing many of the most successful actors being very unpleasant, selfish people wracked by personal problems such as drug addiction and severe depression.

Rachel was naturally drawn to Adrian, and they enjoyed a good relationship that spanned several years. Rachel gained much worldly knowledge from him, and she put on a few pounds as well as he was a fantasic gourment chef.

But Rachel was still evolving in a variety of ways, and her needs and wants changed in areas in which Adrian had become set in his ways. Adrian's pre-occupation with the injustices of the world were as great as Rachel's desire to improve her material standard of living. They also had some difficulties reconciling the differences in their spiritual beliefs. Despite a Catholic upbringing, Adrian is an aethiest, while Rachel is an avowed Jew. Sadly, they drifted apart, but to this day they still remain good friends.

Rachel had always felt that Adrian was ten times smarter than her and thus wanted to broaden her knowledge in the sciences, so she returned to college, this time as a geology major.

While attending a foreign language class, Rachel met a Jewish man named Jon Goldberg. Jon was already a successful businessman, and had none of the rough edges in appearance and manner posessed by Adrian. Like Adrian, Jon was (and still is) a kind hearted man, but also proved to be worldly as well. They fell in love and were married shortly before Rachel received her Masters Degree.

After graduation, Rachel really didn't know what to do with herself and tried a variety of jobs before settling in with a job in advertising at a magazine called, "Raising Teens." It was there that she really got her exposure to the professional working world. She was fulfilled in this job, and it lasted several years.

But Rachel wanted new challenges. She really liked talking on the phone, and she really liked making things happen. One day after having successfully steered an unemployed friend to a company that needed such an employee, her friend took her out to lunch. While gorging themselves on matzah balls and other goodies, Rachel's friend said, "Rachel, you know so many people, and people just love to talk to you. I think you should get a job as an executive recruiter; I know that you would be the greatest. I've heard that these people can make thousands every time they find somebody a job. Can you imagine that?"

Intrigued, Rachel talked to Jon about such a change, and not only was he totally supportive, he thought that it was a great idea and that such a job would fit her even better than her job in advertising which she enjoyed, but where she was getting tired of talking to the same people over and over again. After some looking, she landed a job with a little flunky recruitment firm.

It took little time for Rachel to realize that these people were total losers. Despite the problems, she enjoyed what little work came her way. She could clearly see what was wrong with their business, so she took her show on the road again and found a company called RGA Associates in San Francisco. Jon was eager to accept a job offer in a nearby city, so they moved to Berkeley, California, also known as "The People's Republic of Berkeley."

Jon said that Rachel's initials were a good omen for her new job, and he was right. It was clear that this was going to be good. She fit right in with even the most experienced, professional folks in the business, and in just a few months was totally on top of things, just as she had been in her job at Raising Teens, but was facing fun and new challenges every day, all the while learning about a variety of high technology industries. Rachel was popular to the extent that many of the people whom she had placed (and some she hadn't) would call her up just to chat. One such engineer even created a web page in her honor!

Rachel also found a wonderful Jewish community in the San Francisco Bay Area. She liked her new environment so much that she convinced her brother Scott to move to the area. Together, they became very active in their local synagogue.

Rachel, always on the lookout for something new, felt like she was in a pretty good place from which to do some exploring, so she left her job at RGA and went on a long trip where she met many different kinds of people. Of course, they all liked Rachel. To be continued...