Posted
on December 12, 2013
On
this date in 1950, Paula Ackerman became the first woman to perform
as a rabbi in the U.S., leading the Jewish Services for the Temple
Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi.
Her
husband had been the rabbi but had died suddenly a few weeks before.
Because she had led an occasional service when her husband was away
or ill, Ackerman probably felt pretty comfortable leading services
again. But she ended up being the rabbi for her congregation for
several years! Finally a (male) replacement rabbi was found in
September of 1953.
About
a decade later, Ackerman led services and did other rabbinical duties
for a congregation in Florida for a year or two.
And
she was never ordained. She never went to school to be ordained.
Women didn't do that then!
Ackerman
once wrote to a friend, “If I can just plant a seed for the Jewish
woman's larger participation—if perhaps it will open a way for
women students to train for congregational leadership—then my life
would have some meaning."
Well,
she did plant a seed, although it took a while for that seed to
sprout. It wasn't until 1972 that a woman named Sally Priesand became
the first woman ordained as a rabbi in the United States. (Priesand
was the second woman ordained anywhere in the world in all of the
history of Judaism.)
Now
there are hundreds of women rabbis—my sister among them!
Was
Ackerman really the first?
About
half a century before Ackerman became “the first woman to perform
as a rabbi in the U.S.,” a woman named Ray Frank became the first
Jewish woman to preach from the pulpit in the U.S. Frank did a lot of
public speaking and preaching-from-the-pulpit as a guest speaker /
preacher, traveling up and down the West Coast, from California to
Washington. And this was way back in the 1890s! But Frank did not act
as a rabbi with a congregation, as Ackerman did; she did not perform
weddings and funerals and do other congregational duties, as Ackerman
did.
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