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As one of the first women rabbis (and the first to be ordained while pregnant), Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus helped create a model for work-life balance for both women and men in the rabbinate.
Rabbi Elaine Zecher uses her own experiences of illness and struggle to counsel congregants and craft prayers for Mishkan T’fillah and Mishkan HaNefesh, the prayer books of the Reform Movement.
I never realized that it was possible for my whole outlook on Judaism to be transformed in an hour and a half, or that a few moments of hearing voices come together in prayer could move me so deeply. But that’s exactly what happened when I led my youth group in Shabbat services this past March.
Read the 1890 Yom Kippur sermon by Ray Frank, the first Jewish woman to preach formally from a pulpit, and consider what unites and divides the Jewish people both historically and today.
The first woman rabbi to be ordained in Israel, Naamah Kelman has helped cultivate future rabbis as the first female dean of Hebrew Union College’s Jerusalem campus.
The first female congregational rabbi to serve in Israel, Kinneret Shiryon went on to establish Kehillat Yozma, the first non-Orthodox congregation to receive funding from the state.
Although she never became a rabbi, Jane Evans, Executive Director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, became a powerful voice for women’s ordination within the Reform Movement.
Carrie Obendorfer Simon helped shape the Reform movement as founder of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, which quickly became the largest Jewish women’s organization in America.
Stella Heinsheimer Freiberg helped found the Reform Movement’s National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and pushed for the major American Reform organizations to join the World Union for Progressive Judaism.
At a time when the Jewish community was focused on the benefits of assimilation and the possibilities of ethical culture, Esther Jane Ruskay argued passionately for a return to traditional religious practice and study.
