Assume the roles of Southern Jews participating in a Temple board meeting on whether or not to support Northern Jewish activists staging a protest in town.
Consider how Jewish experiences and values – in both conscious and unconscious ways – informed the actions of Jews in the Civil Rights Movement, and inform our own allegiances and behaviors.
Yesterday I celebrated Mother's Day in an unusual way. Instead of the traditional "early bird" dinner with my extended family, I traveled to New York City for a reunion of Jewish feminist matriarchs: the founders of Ezrat Nashim. I was invited to this gathering as a daughter of the movement to present a reflection on Jewish feminism today.
Raised as a Reform Jew by an ardent feminist, it was drilled into me that I could grow up to be anything I wanted. An astronaut, a doctor, the President — whatever (though I’m sure an underemployed freelance writer slacker mom wasn’t what my highly accomplished mother had in mind.)
After a year of working in what was essentially a rabbinic position at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, New York, Sara Hurwitz was given the title of “rabbah” (sometimes spelled “rabba”), the femini
A year ago we congratulated Sara Hurwitz on becoming a Maharat. Today we rejoice in her new title: Rabbah.
The subject of ordaining Orthodox women rabbis is highly controversial. Last year Sara Hurwitz completed the required course of study in Yoreh Deah to become a spiritual leader, but instead of receiving the title of rabbi, a new title was created for her. "Maharat" was created from an acronym that loosely translates to mean a leader in religious law and spirtual matters.
Ray Frank's position in American Jewry
was truly a novel one. In 1890, she became
the first Jewish woman to preach formally
from a pulpit in the United States,
inaugurating a career as "the Girl Rabbi
of the Golden West" that would help to
blaze new paths for women in Judaism.
Virtually overnight, Frank became a sensation
in the Jewish world, and she would remain so
for nearly a decade.
One-hundred and nineteen years ago today, Ray Frank became the first Jewish woman to speak from a synagogue pulpit in the United States. Ray Frank's story is particularly intriguing due to its complexity and the questions it raises. This was undoubtedly an important event in American Jewish women's history, but its impact is not straightforward, and thinking of Ray Frank as a heroine of the women's movement is somewhat problematic.
Apropos of Judith's recent post on Sotomayor and other "firsts," here's a celebratory shout-out to Alysa Stanton who became the world's first African-American female rabbi when she was ordained yesterday, June 6th, at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati. What does Stanton make of her status as a first? "If I were the 50,000th, I'd still be doing what I do, trying to live my life with kavanah and kedusha ... Me being first was just the luck of the draw," she explained.
Alysa Stanton became the world's first African-American female rabbi when she was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati on June 6, 2009.
Following a lengthy and intense debate within the Conservative movement, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) faculty senate, on October 24, 1983, voted 34-8 to admit women to the JTS Rabbinical S
On August 31, 1990, in the midst of the build-up to the first Persian Gulf War, the Omaha, Nebraska, Jewish Press profiled Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, the first female rabbi to serve in the U.S. military.
On June 29, 1922, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement's professional organization, meeting in Cape May, N.J., debated a resolution declaring that "women cannot jus
Sally Priesand made history on June 3, 1972, when she was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), becoming the first female rabbi in American history and the first
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first female Reconstructionist rabbi when she was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) in Philadelphia, on May 19, 1974.
On April 29, 1957, Jane Evans spoke to 1,000 delegates in favor of ordaining women rabbis at a biennial general assembly meeting of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) – renamed
When Rabbi Janet Marder was named president of the Reform Movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) on March 26, 2003, she became the first woman to lead a major rabbinical organizati
