Lynn Gottlieb

b. April 12, 1949

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Lynn Gottlieb until we are able to commission a full entry.

Lynn Gottlieb and others.

One of the first ten women rabbis, Lynn Gottlieb became a voice for justice within the Jewish community and beyond. Gottlieb became spiritual leader of Temple Beth Or of the Deaf in New York at the age of 23 and studied at several seminaries before her ordination through the Jewish Renewal Movement in 1981. She co-founded Congregation Nahalat Shalom in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before moving to California to found Interfaith Inventions Wilderness Peace Camp, a continuation of her work with the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk and other interfaith peace efforts. She also co-founded the Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence in 2008. That year Gottlieb led a Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation to Iran, becoming the first female rabbi to enter the country since the 1979 revolution. Gottlieb has also been involved in Jewish feminist efforts through her creation of the Bat Kol theater troupe, which explored feminist midrash, and her writing of She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism. She holds classes and workshops on Jewish storytelling within an anti-oppression framework. Gottlieb believes in applying teshuvah to systemic violence; she works towards this in her role as board chair of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, which is committed to prison abolition and immigrant rights. Her application of scripture and religious values to social issues is also characteristic of her books Trail Guide to the Torah of Nonviolence (2013), Peace Primer II (2017), and World Beyond Borders Passover Haggadah (2017). In 2007 Letty Cottin Pogrebin listed Gottlieb as one of The Top 50 Rabbis. As of 2023 Gottlieb sits on the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace. 

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Lynn Gottlieb." (Viewed on May 9, 2024) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gottlieb-lynn>.