This is a timeline of women hazzans (also called cantors) in America.
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. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, women are slightly more numerous among worldwide Jewish population (52%).
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.
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, California 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.
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.
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.
Angela Warnick Buchdahl is an American rabbi. She was the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first 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.
Cantors Assembly (CA) is the international association of hazzanim (cantors) affiliated with Conservative Judaism. Cantors Assembly was founded in 1947 to develop the profession of the hazzan, to foster the fellowship and welfare of hazzanim, and to establish a conservatory for hazzanim. The latter goal was realized in 1952 with the establishment of the Cantors Institute at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This Institute later developed into the H. L. Miller Cantorial School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
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.
Avitall Gerstetter is the first female hazzan (cantor) in Jewish Renewal and the first female cantor in Germany.
Susan Wehle was ordained the first American female Jewish Renewal cantor (hazzan) in 2006. Wehle was a cantor for Temple Beth Am in Williamsville, New York, and Temple Sinai in Amherst, New York, for nine years. She created one CD, Songs of Healing and Hope. She was the daughter of Holocaust survivors Hana and Kurt Wehle, and had two sons, Jonah and Jake. She died in the plane crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 in Clarence, New York.
This is a timeline of women rabbis in the United States.
This is a timeline of women hazzans worldwide.
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.
Julie Rosewald (1847–1906), called “Cantor Soprano” by her congregation, was America's first unofficial cantor, serving San Francisco's Temple Emanu-El from 1884 until 1893.
This is a timeline of women in religion. See also: Timeline of women in religion in the United States.
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.
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