This was a very special occasion for me personally because I spent 11 years in Cincinnati as a student and then graduate student at the University of Cincinnati.  This June marks the 35th anniversary of my husband’s ordination as a rabbi from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati.  

This meeting also focused on the fact that this June is also the 36th anniversary of the ordination of Sally Priesand, the first woman rabbi in the U.S., with whom I shared an apartment for four of the five years that she was at HUC-JIR.  

And finally, the meeting gave me the opportunity to observe our son, now a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in Cincinnati, as he begins to absorb the complex responsibilities of being a moral leader of the community.

Sally’s moral leadership was highlighted at the opening banquet, when we watched a video prepared by the American Jewish Archives entitled “Voices of Moral Leadership.”  We heard a snippet of an address Sally delivered at the 1975 CCAR Convention, held in the same hotel, in which she spoke out strongly against language and custom and practices that continued not only to be simply male-oriented but exclusionary two years after she was ordained.  Now that approximately 1/3 of the Reform rabbis in the U.S. are women, conditions have improved, though there are still “glass pulpits.”  

Rabbi Peter Knobel highlighted this issue in his Presidential Address, albeit as one among many areas in which discrimination persists.  Rabbi Knobel, who is rabbi of Beth Emet – The Free Synagogue in Evanston, IL, called loudly and clearly for rabbis to exercise moral leadership from their pulpits, particularly on the morality of the Iraq war, the need for universal health care, and peace in the Middle East.

Another voice of moral leadership we heard was that of the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, whose comments on pastor John Hagee drew applause not only from those who heard him, but considerable media attention in the days following his remarks.  The debate continues to rage on the front page of Ha’aretz

The convention began with a focus on the courageous rabbis of the American South who risked their lives by supporting the Civil Rights Movement; it ended with a focus on what we all must do to maintain the integrity of the Reform Jewish Movement and the integrity of the State of Israel.  While the rabbis can provide moral leadership, the responsibility falls on each of us – even if we are not rabbis – to sustain whatever social justice cause matters most to us.