Rachel Isaacs

Last updated

Rachel Isaacs was the first openly lesbian rabbi ordained by the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary ("JTS"), which occurred in May 2011. [1]

Contents

Biography

Isaacs earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in 2005, where she was the Hillel Co-President. [2] [3] She transferred to JTS from the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in her third year of rabbinical school. [4]

She is now the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Waterville, Maine, which is a Conservative synagogue, [2] [5] as well as the Dorothy "Bibby" Levine Alfond Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College. [6] She is also the director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, also at Colby. [7]

Isaacs was mentored at JTS by Rabbi Carie Carter, who placed the tallit across Isaacs' shoulders at her ordination. [4] Rabbi Carter was a closeted lesbian during her time at JTS, and wrote the originally-anonymous chapter "In Hiding" about lesbian Conservative rabbis in the 2001 book Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation. [1] Rabbi Carter is now openly lesbian, and works at Brooklyn's Park Slope Jewish Center, which Rachel Isaacs interned at. [1]

In 2014, Isaacs was named one of "America's Most Inspiring Rabbis" by the Jewish Daily Forward. [5] In 2016, she delivered the evening Hanukkah benediction at the White House. [8]

See also

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Theological Seminary of America</span> Religious education organization in New York, New York

The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies. The Jewish Theological Seminary Library is one of the most significant collections of Judaica in the world.

Keshet Rabbis is an organization of Conservative/Masorti rabbis, cofounded in 2003 by Menachem Creditor, which holds that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews should be embraced as full, open members of all Conservative congregations and institutions. Based on its understanding of Jewish sources and Jewish values, it asserts that LGBT Jews may fully participate in community life and achieve positions of professional and lay leadership.

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid (Milwaukee)</span> United States historic place

Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue located at 6880 North Green Bay Road in Glendale, a suburb north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Temple Beth Israel (Eugene, Oregon)</span> Synagogue in Eugene, Oregon

Temple Beth Israel is a Reconstructionist synagogue located at 1175 East 29th Avenue in Eugene, Oregon, in the United States. Founded in the early 1930s as a Conservative congregation, Beth Israel was for many decades the only synagogue in Eugene.

Congregation Beth Israel is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue located at 989 West 28th Avenue in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was founded in 1925, but did not formally incorporate until 1932. Its first rabbi was Ben Zion Bokser, hired that year. He was succeeded the following year by Samuel Cass (1933–1941). Other rabbis included David Kogen (1946–1955), Bert Woythaler (1956–1963), and Wilfred Solomon, who served for decades starting in 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Congregation Beth Israel (Asheville, North Carolina)</span> Synagogue in Asheville, North Carolina, United States

Congregation Beth Israel is an independent, traditional egalitarian Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 229 Murdock Avenue in Asheville, North Carolina, in the United States. Founded in 1899 as Bikur Cholim, it was an Orthodox breakaway from Asheville's existing synagogue. It hired its first full-time rabbi in 1909, opened a religious school in 1911, and acquired its first building, which burnt down in 1916, in 1913.

Beth Israel Congregation is a Conservative synagogue located at 385 Pottstown Pike in Upper Uwchlan Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The congregation was founded in Coatesville in 1904 as Kesher Israel by Eastern European immigrants, and formally chartered as "Beth Israel" in 1916. It constructed its first building in 1923, and expanded it after World War II.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert L. Lewis</span> American rabbi

Rabbi Albert L. Lewis was a leading American Conservative rabbi, scholar, and author; President of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the international organization of Conservative rabbis; and Vice-President of The World Council of Synagogues. In 2009, the award-winning author, Mitch Albom, wrote about Lewis, his childhood rabbi, as the main character in the non-fiction book, Have a Little Faith. The book, hailed as a story of faith that inspires faith in others, concludes with the eulogy that Albom delivered at Lewis's funeral, on February 12, 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Buchdahl</span> American rabbi (born 1972)

Angela Buchdahl is an American reform 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.

Jews have been living in Maine, a state in the northeastern United States, for 200 years, with significant Jewish communities in Bangor as early as the 1840s and in Portland since the 1880s. The arrival of Susman Abrams in 1785 was followed by a history of immigration and settlement that parallels the history of Jewish immigration to the United States.

Chaya Gusfield is an American, Northern California attorney, known for being one of the two first openly lesbian rabbis ordained by the Jewish Renewal movement. Gusfield and Rabbi Lori Klein were ordained at the same time in January 2006.

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, and the first woman to serve as a rabbi for a solely Conservative congregation, when she was hired by Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County, which was then located in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

Bea Wyler is the second female rabbi in Germany and the first to officiate at a congregation.

Steven Blane is an American rabbi, cantor and recording singer-songwriter.

This is a timeline of women rabbis:

This is a timeline of LGBT Jewish history, which consists of events at the intersection of Judaism and queer people.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Amy Stone (Summer 2011). "Out and Ordained" (PDF). Lilith. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
  2. 1 2 "Beth Israel Congregation". Beth Israel Congregation, Waterville, ME. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
  3. ↑ "Jewish Studies at Colby College » Blog Archive » Welcome, Rachel Isaacs and Linda Maizels!". Jewish Studies at Colby College. Colby College. 2011-08-19. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
  4. 1 2 "JTS Ordains Its First Openly Gay Rabbi – The Sisterhood – Forward.com". Blogs.forward.com. 2011-05-25. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
  5. 1 2 "Rabbi at Waterville synagogue named one of America's 'Most Inspiring' Jewish clergy". The Bangor Daily News. 20 March 2014. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
  6. ↑ College, Colby. "Dorothy "Bibby" Levine Alfond Professorship of Jewish Studies Inaugural Lecture and a Celebration of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015". Colby.edu.
  7. ↑ College, Colby. "Center for Small Town Jewish Life". Colby.edu.
  8. ↑ Posted December 15, 2016 (2016-12-15). "Waterville rabbi calls delivering Hanukkah remarks at White House 'incredible'". CentralMaine.com. Retrieved 2017-06-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.