RJ Blog

I was blessed to have had the opportunity to become a rabbi and serve the Jewish community in a time when the doors to the rabbinate were open to women. As we celebration the 40th anniversary of Sally Priesand’s ordination, I am acutely aware that this was not always the case. Rabbi Priesand and the generation of pioneering women who came before me pushed through closed doors and laid out a welcome mat for women like me. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their perseverance. I am also reminded of the generations of women who came before them [...]

by Rabbi Stephanie Kolin There’s a story told about East End Temple in New York City, the congregation in which I grew up. For 16 years, Rabbi Deborah Hirsch was my rabbi and rabbi to many families like mine. One day, a young boy I used to babysit, Matt, was walking with his mom; they were also members of East End Temple. They stopped for a moment on an NYC sidewalk to speak to a certain man. When the man walked away, she said to her son: “Matt, do you know who that was? That was the rabbi from Town [...]

by Rabbi Bonnie Margulis Years ago, as an undergraduate at NYU, I was working on my senior honors thesis, “On the Ordination of Women as Rabbis.” It had been only 11 years since the first woman was ordained, but it was more than half a lifetime ago for me, and so seemed a very long time ago. It never occurred to me that I could try to go see Rabbi Sally Priesand and interview her. She was in Morristown, I was in Paramus – just an hour away, but who knew?  Today I kick myself that I was so dumb. [...]

by Arlene Sarah Chernow On May 13, I will watch my youngest daughter become Rabbi Ilana Mills, joining her sisters, Rabbi Mari Chernow and Rabbi Jordana Chernow-Reader in the rabbinate. Like most mothers (and fathers, too!), I have always hoped that my daughters would find fulfilling, meaningful work that matches their skills and talents, and provides opportunities for them to grow intellectually and emotionally. This coming Sunday, on Mother’s Day, I will see these hopes fulfilled. It may seem hard to believe, but when I went to college, women chose majors in just a few areas—teaching, nursing, and social work.  [...]

I experienced a profound moment of clarity Monday afternoon. Attending Reform Jewish Voice of New York State (RJV) Advocacy Day in Albany, I listened intently as Rabbi Linda Goodman of Union Temple in Brooklyn affirmed the Reform Jewish values undergirding our Movement’s advocacy for reproductive choice while speaking to her state Senator. Though her words were persuasive and meaningful, it was the silent but amplified power of her position that resonated so deeply. That a female rabbi, a leader of the Jewish people, had chosen to devote her day to championing the cause of reproductive health spoke volumes about a [...]

In honor of Mother’s Day, WRJ’s President, Lynn Magid Lazar, and Executive Director, Rabbi Marla J. Feldman, were asked to pose May’s Big Question for The Global Day of Jewish Learning. Their question: “As Jewish law commands us to ‘Honor your Father and your Mother’, on this Mother’s Day, how do we fulfill our obligation to honor our mothers? Is there any difference between how we honor our mothers and how we honor our fathers?” was answered by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz below (and on the Global Day site).

Jane Evans wasn’t a rabbi.  Nonetheless, she was quite a force in Reform Judaism, perhaps even its matriarch.  Beginning in 1933, and for the next 43 years, she was the executive director of what is now the Women of Reform Judaism.  From 1976 to 1979 she served as administrator of the Union’s building at 838 Fifth Avenue after which she was, until her death, an executive consultant on personnel, labor union and other functions for the Union. Although I could go on about her seven decades of devotion and diligence to Women of Reform Judaism, the Reform Movement, and her [...]

by Rabbi Carole B. Balin, Ph.D. This year marks a double simcha for American Jews. It is the 40th anniversary of the ordination of the first woman rabbi and the 90th anniversary of the first girl to become a bat mitzvah during a worship service. I wonder whether Judith Kaplan – who pioneered the bat mitzvah at her father Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s synagogue in 1922, two years after women got the vote – could have imagined that the President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion would ordain Sally Priesand 50 years later? Could the young Judith have dreamed that, [...]

by Rabbi Laura Geller Let me remind you what the Jewish world was like in 1976, the year I was ordained as the third woman rabbi in the Reform Movement, just four years after the ordination of Sally Priesand. I had been the only woman in my class; there were as yet no women professors teaching rabbinics. It was one year after the Reform Movement had published its new prayer book, Gates of Prayer. In the introduction to the prayer book was a radical statement: “we have been…keenly aware of the changing status of women in our society. Our commitment [...]

by Rabbi Denise L. Eger On this 40th anniversary of Rabbi Sally Priesand’s ordination, I am reflecting on the impact of that moment on our own Reform Judaism, the larger Jewish world and the implications on my own life. Rabbi Priesand is not just the first woman rabbi of contemporary times, but she is a rabbi’s rabbi. She has guided both the men and women of our Movement with her grace, wisdom, and inspiration. She has mentored both rabbis and lay leaders with her deep thoughtfulness, sense of humor and her deep humility. She has taught all of us what [...]