Sally Priesand Becomes First Female Rabbi - Timeline Event

06-03-1972

Growing up in Cleveland, Sally J. Priesand longed to be a rabbi. In 1964, she entered the University of Cincinnati and after graduation moved over to the Reform movement’s rabbinical school at the nearby Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1972, she became the nation’s first ordained woman rabbi.

Thrust into the spotlight for this distinction, Priesand nonetheless discovered that many synagogues weren’t ready for a clergywoman. She was hired after graduation as assistant rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, but left seven years later, when leaders wouldn’t commit to naming her senior rabbi.

In 1981, after two years of serving in various capacities, she became senior rabbi at Monmouth Reform Temple in the small town of Tinton Falls, N.J. She stayed until retiring in 2006. By then, there were more than 800 ordained women rabbis in America in Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism.

Religious Minorities (Non-Christians)
Women and Religion

Religious Minorities (Non-Christians)
Women and Religion
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