1ST WOMAN RABBI IN U.S. ORDAINED (original) (raw)
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- June 4, 1972
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CINCINNATI, June 3—Sally J. Priesand was ordained at the Isaac M. Wise Temple here today, becoming the first woman rabbi sin this country and, it is believed, the second in the history of Judaism.
Miss Priesand, who is. 25 years old, and 35 male rabbinical candidates were ordained by Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk, president of the Hebrew Union College‐Jewish Institute of Religion, from which they received master's degrees last night.
Before the ceremony, Rabbi Gottschalk hailed Miss Priesand's ordination, as “historic.” Addressing 1,200 relativei and friends of the students front the altar of this Byzantine tern ple, he said, “It attests to the principle of reform Judaism long espoused—of the equality of women in the congregation of the Lord.”
Then the candidates were called one by one to the altar, where the rabbi spoke privately to them, his hands on their shoulders, before presenting the certificate of ordination.
When Miss Priesand was calledi her fellow graduates rose, and she wept as Rabbi Gottschalk spoke to her.
Fate of Predecessor
Although a number of women have studied for the rabbinate during the last 20 years in the one‐million‐member reform branch of Judaism in the United States, Miss Priesand is the first to be ordained.
Her sole known predecessor, Regina. Jonas, was ordained by a rabbi in Offenbach, Germany, in the nineteen‐thirties after Berlin Judaic academy had refused to do so. She practiced, primarily in old‐age homes, until 1940, when, she was interned in a concentration camp and died there.
Miss Priesand will begin her work in. August as assistant rabbi at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue at 30 West 68th Street in New York, a temple with a tradition of social reform. She will preach, teach, officiate at weddings and funerals and perform other duties as assistant to Rabbi Edward E. Klein.
Equality of the sexes is one of the fundamental principles of reform Judaism,. which developed in Germany, in the 19th century. For example, the branch does not follow Orthodox practice of seating men and women separately in synagogues. ‘Fifty years, ago, the American Reform rabbinate deGlared that women could not be denied ordination.
However, it was not until the 1950's that women were admitted by theological schools as rabbinical candidates. Two women are currently participating in the five‐to‐six‐year graduate program for ordination at the New York branch. of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. The college, which also has campuses in Los Angeles and Jerusalem, is the major reform theological school.
Another woman candidate is at the Philadelphia College of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. Neither the, Conservative nor Orthodox branch of Judaism allows women to be? come rabbis.
In an interview yesterday, Rabbi Gottschalk said that Miss Priesand's ordination “breaks the stereotype” or a father figure, allowing Jewish women to consider seeking the rabbinate. And, he said, it gives the role a “new dimension,” which he described as “an intuitive sense and kind of graciousness” that he said women appear, to have to a greater degree than men do.
However, he stressed that he was interested in individuals regardless of their sex and dismissed any notion of seeking an equal number of men and women rabbis.
Miss Priesand, who is known as Rabbi Sally, was born in Cleveland and graduated from the University. of Cincinnati, where she majored in English.
She decided to become a rabbi when she was in the 10th grade and said that she would, always be grateful to her parents because “they didn't throw. up their hands and say ‘What kind of a job is. that for a nice Jewish girl.’ “
Hopes to Marry
Fellow seminary students at first assumed that she merely intended to find a husband, but they have come to respect her sincerity, she says.
Miss Priesand does hope to marry some day. If she marries another rabbi, an event she considers unlikely, she would want to be his assistant rather than an equal, she says.
Nevertheless, she backs what she calls the fundamental posi, tion of the women's liberation movement in support of the right of all human beings to fulfill their potentials in any meaningful way.
Convinced that a rabbi “must take stands on all the issues,” Miss Priesand angered a congregation in Hattiesburg, Miss., where she was a student rabbi a few years ago, by denouncing the Vietnam war.
She expresses delight with her forthcoming position in New York but says that she always knew she would get at least a few job offers “because I'm a curiosity.”
“They could say they're the first ones to hire me,” she said.
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