Angela Warnick Buchdahl, born in Seoul, Korea,[1] is the first Asian-American person to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first Asian-American person to be ordained as a hazzan (also called a cantor), in all the world.[2][3] She was ordained as a cantor in 1999 and ordained as a rabbi in 2001,[4] with both ordinations done by HUC-JIR, an American seminary for Reform Judaism.[5] As of 2011 she is the cantor of Central Synagogue, a large Reform congregation in Manhattan.[5] She has served as faculty for the Wexner Heritage Foundation and for the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Kallot programs, and on the board of the Jewish Multiracial Network.[5] [6]
Her father was an Ashkenazi Reform Jew and her mother was a Korean Buddhist. [7]