Avis Miller

After Miller graduated from Wellesley College in 1966, she spent several years as a stay-at-home mother, worked as an accountant, and became an activist for teenage mothers. She then studied at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and was ordained in 1986. She began serving as a rabbi at Adas Israel in Washington, DC while still a rabbinical student, and remained with the congregation for her entire career, becoming rabbi emerita in 2008. While there, she created learner’s minyans and founded Open Dor, a foundation to engage and serve unaffiliated Jews. She also led the synagogue in an influential campaign to aid Ethiopian Jews and published a collection of sermons, On the Wings of Hope, in 2002. Her focus on outreach also guided her work for the Rabbinical Assembly, the professional organization of Conservative rabbis, as a regional president, member of the executive council, and leader of the RA’s national outreach and conversion committee.

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The most wonderful rabbi in the world, thank you.

Rabbi Avis Miller with a koala, on a 2016 trip to Australia. Photo courtesy of Rabbi Miller.

How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Avis Miller." (Viewed on May 31, 2023) <https://jwa.org/rabbis/narrators/miller-avis>.

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