This Day in History

July 1, 1993

Anne Lapidus Lerner Named Vice Chancellor of JTS

After earning bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Harvard, Anne Lapidus Lerner joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in 1969, becoming the first American-born woman to hold a full-time position there. JTS trains rabbis and cantors for the Conservative movement and offers a range of masters and doctoral degree programs. On July 1, 1993, she became Vice Chancellor of the Seminary, the first woman to hold that post. As Vice Chancellor, Lerner was one of the highest-ranking women in all of American Jewish institutional life. In that role, she devoted her energy to adult education, working to bring Jewish education to the lay community.

Today, Lerner is an assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Literature at JTS, where she teaches courses in Hebrew and American Jewish poetry, modern Jewish literature, and the portrayal of women in Jewish literature. In addition, she is the director of the JTS Jewish Women's Studies Program, which she also founded, and Director of the Jewish Feminist Research Group. In 2001-02, she was a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School.

Lerner's books include Passing the Love of Women: A Study of Gide's "Saül" and Its Biblical Roots, which examines how the Biblical book of Samuel inspired a novel by French author André Gide; Who Has Not Made Me a Man: The Movement for Equal Rights for Women in American Judaism, which discusses the interaction between Judaism and the modern American feminist movement; and Eternally Eve: Images of Eve in the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and Modern Jewish Poetry. In addition, Lerner has published a range of articles, and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Women's League Outlook, Hadassah, Judaism, Nashim, and Lilith.

Source: www.jtsa.edu/x1793.xml?ID_NUM=100334.