Elisa Klapheck (born 10 December 1962) is the first female rabbi to serve in the Netherlands, although she was born in Germany. [1] [2] She was also one of the organizers of Bet Debora Berlin, a conference of European women rabbis, cantors, scholars, and rabbinically-educated Jews in Berlin in 1999. [3] She was ordained in 2004 by the Aleph Rabbinic Program, and in 2005 she became the rabbi of "Beit Ha'Chidush" (House of Renewal) in Amsterdam. [4] In 2009 she returned to Germany and has since been the rabbi of the "Egalitarian Minyan" in the Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main. She is a member of the General Conference of Rabbis of Germany (ARK) and an associate member of the Rabbinic Board of "Liberal Judaism" in London.
Klapheck is also the author of Fraulein Rabbiner Jonas: The Story of the First Woman Rabbi, as well as How I Became a Rabbi, Jewish Challenges Here and Now. [5] [6]
She was profiled in the book Turning the Kaleidoscope: Perspectives on European Jewry. [7] There is also an entry on her in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. [8] In 2010, she was featured in the documentary Kol Ishah: The Rabbi is a Woman, directed by Hannah Heer. [9]
The role of women in Judaism is determined by the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law, by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature mention various female role models, religious law treats women differently in various circumstances.
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish musician or precentor trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer. In English, this prayer leader is often referred to as a cantor, a term also used in Christianity.
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.
Regina Jonas was a Berlin-born rabbi. In 1935, she became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi. There had been some women before Jonas who made significant contributions to Jewish thought, such as the Maiden of Ludmir, Asenath Barzani, and Lily Montagu, who acted in similar roles without being ordained.
Asenath Barzani, was a Jewish-Kurdish female rabbinical scholar and poet who lived near Duhok, Kurdistan.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.
Rachel Adler is professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus.
Paula Hyman was a social historian and the Lucy Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History at Yale University.
Women rabbis are individual Jewish women who have studied Jewish Law and received rabbinical ordination. Women rabbis are prominent in Progressive Jewish denominations, however, the subject of women rabbis in Orthodox Judaism is more complex. Although Orthodox women have been ordained as rabbis, many major Orthodox Jewish communities and institutions do not accept the change. In an alternative approach, other Orthodox Jewish institutions train women as Torah scholars for related Jewish religious roles. These roles typically involve training women as religious authorities in Jewish Law but without formal rabbinic ordination, instead, alternate titles are used. Yet, despite this alteration in title, these women are often perceived as equivalent to ordained rabbis. Since the 1970s, over 1,200 Jewish women have been ordained as rabbis.
Janet Marder was the first female president of the Reform Movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), which means she was the first woman to lead a major rabbinical organization and the first woman to lead any major Jewish co-ed religious organization in the United States; she became president of the CCAR in 2003. She was also the first woman and the first non-congregational rabbi to be elected as the President of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis.
Laura Geller is an American rabbi. She serves as the rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California.
Martha Neumark (1904–1981) was an notable figure in the history of women's ordination as rabbis for being the first Jewish woman to be accepted into a rabbinical school.
Linda Joy Holtzman is an American rabbi and author. In 1979 she became one of the first women in the United States to serve as the presiding rabbi of a synagogue, when she was hired by Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County, which was then located in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. She had graduated in 1979 from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, yet was hired by Beth Israel despite their being a Conservative congregation. Holtzman was thus the first woman to serve as a rabbi for a solely Conservative congregation, as the Conservative movement did not then ordain women. However, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso served as rabbi along with her husband at the congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis from 1977 until 2013; Beth El Zedeck is identified with both the Reconstructionist and Conservative movements. In 1979 The New York Times published the article "Only Female Presiding Rabbi in U.S. Begins Her Work in a Small Town", in which the author described Holtzman's hiring as "a marked breakthrough for the growing numbers of women who have faced obstacles in becoming a rabbi-in-charge", and quoted Holtzman as saying "the fact that I have an appointment in a small town and that they have entrusted me with functions they believe are important is very significant for women and for the Jewish community". In 1981 Holtzman became the first female rabbi to give a keynote speech for the World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jews.
Tehilla Lichtenstein was a cofounder and leader of Jewish Science, as well as an author. She was born in Jerusalem and immigrated to America when she was eleven years old. Her parents were Hava (Cohen) and Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn. She earned a B.A. degree in Classics from Hunter College and an M.A. degree in literature from Columbia University.
This is a timeline of women rabbis in the United States.
Jane Evans (1907–2004) was the executive director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods from 1933 to 1976. She was its first full-time Executive Director, as from 1913 until 1933 the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods was led by volunteer presidents. Evans also became president of the National Peace Conference in 1950. Evans supported ordination for women. On April 29, 1957, she spoke to 1,000 delegates at a biennial general assembly meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism in favor of ordaining women, a speech which the New York Times called a "strong plea," though the UAHC took no action. While Evans was still executive director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods in 1963, it approved a resolution at its biennial assembly calling on the UAHC, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to move forward on the ordination of women.
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.
Toanot Rabbaniyot, or Toanot, refer to women who serve as legal advocates and representatives within the traditional Jewish courts of law. Toanot typically argue cases on behalf of female claimants in the areas of divorce law. This role is well-established in the Israeli rabbinical court system. The introduction of the role of woman representative and advocate was the result of instances when women would not receive fair divorce settlements in Israeli rabbinical courts. The innovation of Toanot is described as allowing Orthodox women to serve in a rabbinical leadership role that does not require rabbinical ordination.