Denise Eger | |
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 Eger in 2010 | |
| Born | March 14, 1960 [1] |
| Education |
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| Website | rabbieger.wordpress.com |
Denise Eger (born March 14, 1960) [1] is an American Reform rabbi. [4] In March 2015, she became president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in North America; she was the first openly gay person to hold that position. [5] [6]
Denise Eger was born in New Kensington, and raised in Memphis. [3]
In 1982, Eger received a bachelor’s degree in religion from the University of Southern California. [2]
In 1985, she received a master’s degree from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. [2] [3]
In 2013, she received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. [7] [8]
In 1988, Eger was ordained by Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion at their campus in New York. [2] [3]
She worked as the first full-time rabbi at Beth Chayim Chadashim for four years, after which she became the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, which was founded in 1992. [9] She served Congregation Kol Ami for thirty years before retiring in 2023. [10] [11]
In 2008, Eger officiated at the wedding of Robin Tyler and Diane Olson. [12]
In 2009, she became the first female and the first openly gay president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. [13] [9] 2009 was also the year she served as president of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis. [14]
On March 16, 2015, she became president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in North America; she was the first openly gay person to hold that position. [5] [6] She held the position until March 20, 2017. [15]
Eger is gay; she came out publicly as gay in 1990 in a story in the Los Angeles Times . [16] [4]
In 1994, she and Karen Siteman were married by a rabbi. They remarried in October 2008, at their home in Cheviot Hills. [13] They also had a son, called Benjamin. [9] However, Eger later married Eleanor Steinman. Steinman is also a rabbi. [11]
The subject of homosexuality and Judaism dates back to the Torah. The book of Vayikra (Leviticus) is traditionally regarded as classifying sexual intercourse between males as a to'eivah that can be subject to capital punishment by the current Sanhedrin under halakha.
Sally Jane Priesand is America's first female rabbi ordained by a rabbinical seminary, and the second formally ordained female rabbi in Jewish history, after Regina Jonas. Priesand was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on June 3, 1972, at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati. After her ordination she served first as assistant and then as associate rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, and later led Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, New Jersey from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. She is featured in numerous books including Rabbis: The Many Faces of Judaism and Fifty Jewish Women who Changed the World.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada. The CCAR is the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in the world. Its current president is Rabbi Erica Asch.
Amy Eilberg is the first female rabbi ordained in Conservative Judaism. She was ordained in 1985 by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, one of the academic centers and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism.
Jacqueline Hazel "Jackie" Tabick is a British Reform rabbi. She became Britain's first female rabbi in 1975. She retired in 2023 as convenor of the Movement for Reform Judaism's Beit Din, the first woman in the role, and until its closure in 2022 was also Rabbi of West Central Liberal Synagogue in Bloomsbury, central London.
Naomi Levy is an American rabbi, author and speaker.
The first openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clergy in Judaism were ordained as rabbis and/or cantors in the second half of the 20th century.
Alfred Gottschalk was a German-born American rabbi who was a leader in the Reform Judaism movement, serving as head of the movement's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) for 30 years, as president from 1971 to 1996, and then as chancellor until 2000. In that role, Rabbi Gottschalk oversaw the ordination of the first women to be ordained as rabbis in the United States and Israel, and he oversaw the development of new HUC campuses in Jerusalem, Los Angeles and New York City, three of the school's four campuses.
Naamah Kelman-Ezrachi is an American-born Reform rabbi who was named as Dean of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion campus in Jerusalem starting in July 2009. In 1992, Kelman made history as the first woman in Israel to become a rabbi when she received her rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk.
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is the first woman to have been ordained a rabbi in Reconstructionist Judaism. She was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, on May 19, 1974. She is also the author of many children's books on religious topics.
Pauline Bebe is the rabbi of Communauté Juive Libérale, a Progressive Jewish congregation in Paris. She was the first female rabbi in France, and the first female rabbi to lead a synagogue there. As of 2018 France has only four women rabbis, Bebe, Célia Surget, Delphine Horvilleur. and Floriane Chinsky.
Sharon Brous is an American rabbi who is the senior rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish congregation in Los Angeles. She was one of the founders of IKAR in 2004, along with Melissa Balaban, who currently serves as IKAR's Chief Executive Officer, and others. Every year since its founding, IKAR has been named one of the nation’s 50 most innovative Jewish nonprofits by the Slingshot Fund Guide, a resource guide for Jewish innovation.
Laura Geller is an American rabbi. She serves as the rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California.
Tanya Segal is the first full-time female rabbi in Poland and the first female rabbi in the Czech Republic. Segal is also a professional theatrical director, actress, singer and guitar player.
Julie Schwartz is an American rabbi. She was born in Cincinnati and, in 1986, she became the first woman to serve as an active-duty Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Navy, the same year she was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She counseled patients at the naval hospital in Oakland, California, and after a three-year tour of duty she returned to Cincinnati and held assorted jobs at HUC-JIR.
Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is The Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature and History at the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.
Amy Perlin is the first female rabbi in the United States to start her own congregation, Temple B'nai Shalom in Fairfax Station, Virginia, of which she was the founding rabbi in 1986. In 1978, she graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Near Eastern Studies, with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. In 1980 she received a M.A.H.L., and in 1982 she was ordained by the Reform seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). She later earned a Doctor of Divinity degree from HUC-JIR in 2007.
This is a timeline of women rabbis:
Congregation Kol Ami is a synagogue located in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States. The synagogue serves both Reform and Conservative congregations that are respectively affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
This is a timeline of LGBT Jewish history, which consists of events at the intersection of Judaism and queer people.
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