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.
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.
Rachel Adler is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus.
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.
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.
Sara Hurwitz is an Orthodox Jewish spiritual leader aligned with the "Open Orthodox" faction of Modern Orthodox Judaism in the United States. She is considered by some to be the first female Orthodox rabbi. She serves as Rabba at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, and the president and co-founder of Yeshivat Maharat, both in Riverdale, New York.
Angela Warnick Buchdahl is an American rabbi. She was the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a hazzan (cantor). In 2011 she was named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of America's "Most Influential Rabbis", and in 2012 by The Daily Beast as one of America's "Top 50 Rabbis". Buchdahl was recognized as one of the top five in The Forward's 2014 "Forward Fifty", a list of American Jews who had the most impact on the national scene in the previous year.
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.
Kinneret Shiryon, born Sandra Levine is the first female rabbi in Israel. She is the spiritual leader of Kehillat Yozma, Modi'in's Reform congregation, which she helped establish in 1997; Kehillat Yozma is the first non-Orthodox congregation in Israel to receive state funding for its synagogue.
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 very 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.
Andrea Weiss is an American rabbi, author, and Assistant Professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, where she was ordained in 1993.
This is a timeline of women rabbis:
Gesa Ederberg is a German rabbi; she became the first female pulpit rabbi in Berlin in 2007 when she became the rabbi of the New Synagogue, Berlin in the former East Berlin. Her installation as such was opposed by Berlin's senior Orthodox rabbi Yitzchak Ehrenberg.
