Rabbi Laura Geller remembers how she was the only woman out of 30 people in her class at Hebrew Union College.
Ordained in 1976, she became one of the first rabbis in the Reform Judaism movement. Fifty years later, she is proud to have helped break that glass ceiling and pave the way for change.
Rabbis and rabbinical students in the United States are more diverse than ever today, with increasing numbers of women and people from the LGBTQ+ community. Women from previous generations who became rabbis marvel at the greater opportunities available to those who pursue clergy roles.
“Women changed Judaism,” said Geller, rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California. “All kinds of different movements have noticed that Judaism needs to change because women’s voices have been ignored in the past.”
Orthodox branches of Judaism generally do not Allowing women to be rabbiswith some exceptions. But the Reform and Conservative Party, the two largest movements in the United States, allow this, as do the growing non-sectarian branches.
The Jewish community nationally is becoming more diverse, so it makes sense that the rabbinate would be, too, said Janet Krasner Aronson, interim director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.
“A lot of people come into the rabbinate and come from very different backgrounds, and they really want to come in and shake things up a little bit,” she said.
Rebecca Weintraubassociate rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, has witnessed this generational shift in liberal Jewish spaces. She is one of several women serving the community as rabbis.
“For a lot of the younger generation, when they think of a rabbi, a lot of them, in their mind, the image is a woman,” Weintraub said. “When I was growing up, when I thought of a rabbi, I thought, ‘Man.’
An organization that supports and trains Jewish spiritual leaders – ATRA: Center for Rabbinic Innovation – has New search Documenting the diversity of the American rabbinate and its student pipeline. It recently surveyed stakeholders including rabbis, students, schools and other key Jewish institutions.
ATRA’s research confirms that men still make up the majority of the more than 4,000 non-Orthodox rabbis in the United States, but women now constitute a significant minority. There are also more people from the LGBTQ+ community, Jews of color, and members of interfaith families. This increasing diversity is also present in non-Orthodox rabbinical schools, where women constitute the majority.
“We see an opportunity that did not exist for residents who previously could not become rabbis,” said Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein, executive director of Atra. “We still do not have parity among female rabbis in this field, but we see that we have more women in the seminary.”
Among them Sarah Lifshitzwho moved from New Zealand to Los Angeles to enroll at Hebrew Union College, where the student body is all female.
“It is natural for me for a woman to become a rabbi,” said Lifshitz, who will be ordained in May. “It’s a different world I live in than people lived in 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago.”
Eleanor Steinman, chief rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Austin, Texas, sees increased diversity as a sign of prosperity.
“The challenge facing the rabbinate is that institutions, including synagogues, are not necessarily fully prepared for this diversity,” said Steinman, who is gay and known for her advocacy for gay rights in the Jewish community.
Rabbi Tiferet Birnbaum, director of congregational learning and programming at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Massachusetts, recalled how nervous she was during her final year of rabbinical school. Birnbaum, who is black and has done extensive work to combat racism in the Jewish community, was ordained in 2013.
“My Jewish experiences were all pretty much white,” she said. It was time to enter the workforce, and that’s when voices started rising in my head: Who would hire a black rabbi? Not “Who would hire a rabbi?”
While serving in parishes in Wisconsin and New Jersey, she encountered the remnants of rabbinic patriarchy, including a lack of accommodations when she became a mother and her husband assumed the “rebbetzin” duties traditionally performed by the wives of male rabbis.
“Some of the early rabbis were pushed into a deep patriarchy, where they were accepted but not really accepted, or accepted but forced to mold themselves according to a masculine view of what a rabbi is,” said Birnbaum, who is now one of three female rabbis in her congregation. “Whereas women are now able to realize their full selves.”
It is clear to some rabbinical students that following a career path paved by female and LGBTQ+ rabbis who came before them has made their quest easier. That’s the case for Sarah Rockford, an LGBTQ+ student at Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
“My leadership is welcomed, celebrated, and not treated in some ways as exceptional because of my gender or my sexuality,” she said. “We tend to forget how quickly things change.”
Rockford credits strong female mentors with exemplifying how people from diverse backgrounds can take on this role, such as Rabbi Rachel Isaacs of Congregation Beth Israel in Waterville, Maine. In 2011, Isaac became the first openly gay rabbi to be appointed by the conservative yeshiva.
“The Jewish community is more diverse in every sense than the Jewish community I grew up in,” Isaacs said.
Many in the rabbinate are drawn to meaningful and fulfilling work. But it also requires.
“I love teaching, I love pastoring, I love leading services,” said Felicia Saul, the first woman to serve as senior rabbi in New York’s B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue, which spans nearly 200 years. “We are front and center of the most important moments in people’s lives.”
“Rabbis are being pulled in so many directions and being pressured in so many ways, which is very frustrating and difficult.”
Some rabbis cite the challenge of Hold gatherings together In times of heightened political divisions and growing tensions around… Israel-Hamas war. Unsustainable expectations, emotional exhaustion and financial stress are common, according to ATRA’s research.
“The biggest struggle is fatigue,” Isaacs said. “No matter how hard you try, the line or boundary between personal and professional is very blurry, making it very difficult to separate.”
Steinman agrees. She felt called to become a rabbi as a teenager, and wanted to teach and advise the Jewish community. But she said it can be shocking: “When I tell people I have one day off a week, they are shocked.”
Rockford, who is preparing to become a rabbi in May, understands the challenges but remains optimistic.
“My hope for the rabbinate is that we continue to ride this wave of diversifying the faces of the people we look to as teachers, as rabbis, and as spiritual leaders,” she said. “The diversity of those voices makes our communities stronger and better prepared to thrive in the next 100 years.”
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