Bonnie Koppell is the first female rabbi to serve in the U.S. military; she joined the army reserves in 1978 while a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1][2] She was ordained in 1981. [3] She later served in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Noble Eagle.[4] She spent Passover in Iraq in 2005 and Hanukkah 2005/2006 with Jewish service members in Kuwait and Afghanistan, and was deployed to Iraq for Passover 2006. She also made a Passover trip to Kuwait in 2010.[5][2]