|
|
|
|
|
|
| Jews · Judaism · Denominations |
|---|
| Regions |
| 1. North America (Reform, Reconstructionist) |
| 2. United Kingdom (Reform, Liberal) |
| 3. Germany |
| 4. Netherlands |
| 5. Israel |
| Beliefs and practices |
Sally Jane Priesand is America's first ordained female rabbi, and the second ordained female rabbi in the world, after Regina Jonas.
Contents |
Sally Jane Priesand was born June 27, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio.[1] As a teenager at Beth Israel-West Temple, a Reform congregation on Cleveland's West Side, she began to display an intense commitment to Judaism and Jewish life.[2] She participated in Jewish summer camps and in Jewish youth groups; when she was 16 she decided to become a rabbi.[3] She was encouraged by her parents to realize her rabbinic dream.[4]
In 1964, Sally Jane Priesand entered the University of Cincinnati. She knew that its joint undergraduate program with neighboring Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) would allow her to complete the first year of rabbinic school as an undergraduate. Accordingly, upon graduation from the University of Cincinnati in 1968, she was admitted to HUC-JIR's rabbinic school.
Priesand was ordained on June 3, 1972, by the Reform Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her rabbinic thesis, published as Judaism and the New Woman (1975), highlighted the changing role of women in Jewish history and was meant to advance their emancipation in Jewish religious life. Perpetuating and expanding the modernizing tradition of the Reform movement, Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk performed her ordination, making her the first woman to be ordained in the United States and believed to be only the second woman ever to be formally ordained in the millennia-long history of Judaism.[5] Rabbi Gottschalk called the ordination of Priesand "historic", one that breaks stereotypes and allows "Jewish women to consider seeking the rabbinate" and a testament to Reform Judaism's efforts at achieving "equality of women in the congregation of the Lord". Priesand wept when Gottschalk spoke with her as she was handed her ordination certificate.[5]
Upon ordination, Rabbi Priesand accepted a position at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, where she served for seven years, first as Assistant Rabbi and then as Associate Rabbi. From 1979 to 1981,[6] she was Rabbi of Temple Beth El in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and also served as Chaplain at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital. In 1981, she became spiritual leader of Monmouth Reform Temple[7] in Tinton Falls, New Jersey where she served until her retirement in June 2006.
Rabbi Priesand retired from Monmouth Reform Temple on June 30, 2006, after 25 years of service to that congregation.[8]
During her rabbinate, Monmouth Reform Temple was a leader in the fight against drunk driving, launched a nationally recognized gun safety campaign (Please ASK), created a permanent Fund for the Homeless to support the work of Interfaith Neighbors, sponsored an annual food drive for The Center in Asbury Park, continued to host an annual Monmouth County arts festival, and instituted an annual "Mitzvah Day" of charitable volunteerism. Furthermore, Rabbi Priesand served on the Executive Board of both the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism. She also served on the Board of Governors of HUC-JIR and as President of the Rabbinic Alumni Association. In 2007, she invited her female rabbinic colleagues of all denominations to join her in donating their professional and personal papers to the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio, in order to document the history of women in the rabbinate.
Rabbi Priesand lives in Ocean Township, New Jersey, with her Boston Terrier, Shadow. Her life includes photography and abstract watercolor. She exhibits annually in the Monmouth Festival of the Arts.[9] She has leadership roles in the Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County, Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey, the Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale Community College, and the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, and is president of the board of directors for Interfaith Neighbors Inc. She is also the editor of the CCAR Newsletter.
Rabbi Priesand is the author of "Judaism and the New Woman" and a contributor to "Women Rabbis: Exploration and Celebration". She is featured in numerous books including Rabbis: The Many Faces of Judaism and Fifty Jewish Women who Changed the World.
She is the recipient of many awards and honors. On April 23, 2009, she received the prestigious Elizabeth Blackwell Award. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) was the first woman in America to receive the Doctor of Medicine degree, and the Elizabeth Blackwell Award is given by Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Geneva, New York) to a woman whose life exemplifies outstanding service to humanity.
In 2010, in honor of its 125th anniversary, Good Housekeeping magazine named her one of 125 women who changed our lives and our world.
All Jewish denominations aside from Orthodox Judaism now ordain women as rabbis and cantors. The first female rabbi worldwide was Regina Jonas, who was ordained privately in 1935 in Berlin, Germany. Several women, including Paula Ackerman, served Jewish communities in the United States and in Canada in a rabbinical capacity before Sally Priesand, but were never formally ordained. Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first female rabbi in Reconstructionist Judaism in 1974,[10] and Amy Eilberg became the first female rabbi in Conservative Judaism in 1985.[11] Lynn Gottlieb became the first female rabbi in Jewish Renewal in 1981,[12] and Tamara Kolton became the first female rabbi in Humanistic Judaism in 1999.[13] In 2009 Alysa Stanton became the world's first African-American female rabbi.[14] In Europe, Leo Baeck College had ordained 30 female rabbis by 2006 (out of 158 ordinations in total since 1956), starting with Jackie Tabick in 1975.