Helene Ferris

Helene Ferris is the first second-career female rabbi in Judaism.[1]

Early Career and Rabbinic Education

Helene Ferris began her career as a first grade teacher and was a stay at home mother before deciding to pursue the rabbinate in 1976 and attending Hebrew Union College (HUC), which requires spending the first of 5 years in Israel. Her 3 children were 7-13 at the time. They accompanied her to Israel, where they attended school, while her husband, Alan, stayed behind in New York.[2][3]

Rabbinical career

Ferris was ordained by the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1981, and worked as an associate rabbi in the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York from 1981 until 1991 when she felt she had reached the proverbial "glass ceiling".[1][4][2] From 1991 until her retirement in 2006, Ferris was the chief rabbi at Temple Israel of Northern Westchester, a Reform synagogue in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.[2]

Among her most well-known activities, on December 1, 1988, Ferris helped prepare a prayer service and read from the Torah at the Western Wall, along with over 70 other Jewish women. This was the first time in history Jewish women prayed together and read from the Torah together at the Western Wall.[5][6][7] Ferris is a board member of the International Committee for Women of the Wall (ICWOW), which is a group working to give women the right to lead public prayers at the Western Wall, which is now illegal.[7]

Ferris supports the inclusion of lesbian and gay Jews in religious life. In 1986, she organized a conference on lesbian and gay Jews in New York City.[8] In 1989 she presided over a same-sex wedding ceremony for Ileen Kaufman and Jan Catalfumo; few rabbis would officiate such a ceremony in those days.[9]

In 2007, Letty Cottin Pogrebin chose her as one of "The Other Fifty Top Rabbis in America."[10] She has written for Reform Judaism magazine.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Stephen Wise Free Synagogue > 4 Decades of Women Rabbis In the Rabbinate and SWFS". Swfs.org. Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  2. ^ a b c Shaw, Dan (2008-02-03). "He Got His Workshop, She Got Her Privacy". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
  3. ^ "Ordained". Lilith Magazine. Winter 2006–2007. Retrieved 2025-07-10.
  4. ^ Schwartz, Penny (2011-08-04). "In their 40s and 50s, embarking on second careers as rabbis |". The Jewish World. Archived from the original on 2013-04-15. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  5. ^ "About". Women of the Wall. Archived from the original on 2012-10-01. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  6. ^ Chesler, Phyllis. "The Walls Came Tumbling Down: How Jewish Feminists Made History :: The Phyllis Chesler Organization". Phyllis Chesler. Archived from the original on 2012-07-29. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  7. ^ a b "Temple Shaaray Tefila - New York City". Shaaraytefilanyc.org. Archived from the original on 2012-11-07. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  8. ^ "Temple Israel of Northern Westchester". www.tinw.org. Retrieved 2025-07-11.
  9. ^ Gilbert, Beth (1996). "Gays & Lesbians Under the Chupah". Reform Judaism Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-10-19. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  10. ^ "Rabbis, Rabbis Everywhere!". Lilith.org. 2007-04-16. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
  11. ^ Ferris, Helene (2006). "Great-Grandfather's Blessings". Reform Judaism Magazine. Archived from the original on 2010-12-22. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
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