Related Research Articles
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.
Women in Judaism have affected the course of Judaism over millenia. Their role is reflected in the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law, by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature present various female role models, religious law treats women in specific ways. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, women account for 52% of the worldwide Jewish population.
Regina Jonas was a Berlin-born Reform rabbi. In 1935, she became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi. Jonas was murdered in the Holocaust.
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.
Lynn Gottlieb is an American rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement.
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.
Tirzah Firestone is an American analytical psychotherapist, author, and Jewish Renewal rabbi. She is the founding rabbi of Congregation Nevei Kodesh, a Jewish Renewal synagogue in Boulder, Colorado, and is now Rabbi Emerita there. She was ordained by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in 1992, and is a leader in the international Jewish Renewal movement.
Nelly Shulman is the first female rabbi and author from Russia and was the first female rabbi in Belarus, having served as the chief reform rabbi of Minsk, Belarus. This makes her the first Russian-born woman to be a rabbi in the former Soviet Union. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received her rabbinical ordination at the Leo Baeck College in London in 1999. She was a rabbi in Belarus for five years, the first female rabbi to serve there. She later returned to Russia and worked as a rabbi in Moscow. She also became a founding member and rabbi for the World Union for Progressive Judaism in Russia. In 2006 she officiated at what is believed to be Russia's first Jewish same-sex commitment ceremony, which led to Russia's largest Jewish group, Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, asking the Jewish Russian community to boycott Reform Jews.
Katalin Kelemen is the first female rabbi in Hungary, where she was born. She studied for the rabbinate at Leo Baeck College in England, and was ordained in 1998. On March 7, 1999, she was inducted as the rabbi of the Sim Shalom Progressive Jewish Congregation in Budapest, Hungary. In 1999 she also attended a conference sponsored by Bet Debora, a Jewish women's initiative founded in 1998.
The "Haredi burqa sect" is a community of Haredi Jews that ordains the full covering of a woman's entire body and face, including her eyes, for the preservation of modesty in public. In effect, the community asserts that a Jewish woman must not expose her bare skin to anyone but her husband and immediate family. The garment in question, known as a shal, is also referred to as a frumka—a portmanteau of the Yiddish-language word frum and the Arabic-language word burqa. The Haredi burqa sect, with an estimated population of several hundred people as of 2011, is primarily concentrated in Israel, and particularly in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. These Haredim rarely leave their homes; the married women who do come out in public are accompanied by their daughters, who also don long robes.
Stacy Offner is an openly lesbian American rabbi. She was the first openly lesbian rabbi hired by a mainstream Jewish congregation, and the first female rabbi in Minnesota. She also became the first rabbi elected chaplain of the Minnesota Senate, the first female vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and the first woman to serve on the [U.S.] national rabbinical pension board.
Elisa Klapheck is the first female rabbi to serve in the Netherlands, although she was born in Germany. 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. She was ordained in 2004 by the Aleph Rabbinic Program, and in 2005 she became the rabbi of "Beit Ha'Chidush" in Amsterdam. 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.
Alina Treiger is the first female rabbi to be ordained in Germany since World War II.
Sybil Ann Sheridan is a writer and British Reform rabbi. She was chair of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK at the Movement for Reform Judaism from 2013 to 2015 and was Rabbi at Wimbledon and District Synagogue in south west London. As of 2020 she is part-time rabbi at Newcastle Reform Synagogue.
This is a timeline of women rabbis:
Leah Novick is a Renewal rabbi and the second oldest woman rabbi in the United States. She lives in Carmel, California.
This is a timeline of women in religion. See also: Timeline of women in religion in the United States, and Timeline of women's ordination.
Shefa Gold is an American rabbi, scholar, and Director of the Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice (C-DEEP) in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Gold is a teacher of chant, Jewish mysticism, Jewish prayer and spirituality who Rabbi Mike Comins described in 2010 as "a pioneer in the ecstatic practice of Jewish chant." Her chants have been used in synagogues, minyanim, and street protests; perhaps her most well known being "Ozi V'zimrat Yah". Combining traditional Jewish liturgical music with Hebrew chant, Gold has worked to cultivate a distinctly Jewish gratitude practice. Her "Flavors of Gratefulness" mobile app has 109 different chants for Modeh Ani, the brief prayer traditionally recited by religious Jews upon awakening. In 2024 she released "Flavors of Praise" with 61 different chants.
This is a timeline of notable moments in the history of women's ordination in the world's religious traditions. It is not an exhaustive list of all historic or contemporary ordinations of women. See also: Timeline of women in religion
References
- ↑ "Norwegian rabbi, Jewish Renewal adherent, to speak in Pittsburgh". Thejewishchronicle.net. Retrieved 2010-11-19.
- ↑ Bet Debora. "Single Mother in an Orthodox Community". Bet-debora.de. Retrieved 2010-11-19.
- ↑ "bet-debora.net" . Retrieved 29 October 2014.
- ↑ "thegrowingedge.org at Directnic" . Retrieved 29 October 2014.
- ↑ "The Jewish Chronicle - Norwegian rabbi Jewish Renewal adherent to speak in Pittsburgh" . Retrieved 29 October 2014.
- ↑ "ALEPH News, June 2007" . Retrieved 29 October 2014.
