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. [1]
She was the first woman hired by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion as a full-time tenure track faculty member for their rabbinical school in 1990, and became the first female tenured full professor in their rabbinical school in 1995. [2]
She was also the chief editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (Andrea Weiss was associate editor), which won the 2008 Jewish Book of the Year Award from the Jewish Book Council. [3] [4]
On May 19, 2013, Eskenazi was ordained as a rabbi by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. [5]
In November of 2022, Eskenazi was elected Vice President [6] of the Society of Biblical Literature; in November 2023, Eskenazi was elevated to President of the Society.
In 2011, Eskenazi and the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky won the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies for The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth. [7] [8]
The 2022 art exhibit “Holy Sparks”, shown among other places at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, featured art about twenty-four female rabbis who were firsts in some way; [9] [10] Carol Hamoy created the artwork about Eskenazi that was in that exhibit. [11]
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
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 Jewish Publication Society (JPS), originally known as the Jewish Publication Society of America, is the oldest nonprofit, nondenominational publisher of Jewish works in English. Founded in Philadelphia in 1888, by Reform Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf among others, JPS is especially well known for its English translation of the Hebrew Bible, the JPS Tanakh.
Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky was a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She received her MA and PhD from Yale University. She had previously served on the faculties of Wayne State University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Yale University, Ben Gurion University, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she served as director of Biblical studies.
David Ellenson was an American rabbi and academic who was known as a leader of the Reform movement in Judaism. Ellenson was director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and visiting professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University and previously president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). He previously served as president of HUC-JIR from 2001 to December 31, 2013, and was later chancellor emeritus of that college until his death. Ellenson had served as interim president following the death of his successor, Aaron D. Panken until the inauguration of Andrew Rehfeld, the 10th and current President.
Balak is the 40th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the seventh in the Book of Numbers. In the parashah, Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, tries to hire Balaam to curse Israel, Balaam's donkey speaks to Balaam, and Balaam blesses Israel instead. The parashah constitutes Numbers 22:2–25:9. The parashah is made up of 5,357 Hebrew letters, 1,455 Hebrew words, 104 verses, and 178 lines in a Torah Scroll.
Rachel Adler is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus.
Jewish commentaries on the Bible are biblical commentaries of the Hebrew Bible from a Jewish perspective. Translations into Aramaic and English, and some universally accepted Jewish commentaries with notes on their method of approach and also some modern translations into English with notes are listed.
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.
Gary Phillip Zola is the executive director of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA) and the Edward M. Ackerman Family Distinguished Professor of the American Jewish Experience & Reform Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati. Since 1998, he has served as the second executive director of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA), succeeding his teacher and mentor, Jacob Rader Marcus (1896–1995). He is also editor of The Marcus Center's award-winning semi-annual publication, The American Jewish Archives Journal.
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.
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.
Women's Rabbinic Network is an American national organization for female Reform rabbis. It was founded in 1980; Rabbi Deborah Prinz was its first overall coordinator, and Rabbi Myra Soifer was the first editor of its newsletter.
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.
Paula Dei Mansi was a Jewish scribe and Torah scholar. She is thought to be the earliest known female Jewish scribe. Dei Mansi was the daughter of Abraham Anau of Verona and belonged to a family of scribes that their roots to Rabbi Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome (1035-1110), author of a noted Jewish legal work. Evidence of Dei Mansi’s skill extends beyond that of scribe to that of a Torah scholar. Dei Mansi contributed to her father's biblical commentary, adding her own explanations in the commentary, in addition to translating the work from Hebrew into Italian. Dei Mansi also transcribed a Hebrew prayer book and added her own explanations as commentary to the prayers. A third work, a collection of laws, is known to have been transcribed by Dei Mansi who wrote the work at the request of a relative.