Janet Marder was the first female president of the Reform Movement's
Central Conference of American Rabbis
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada. The CCAR is the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in the world. ...
(CCAR), which means she was the first woman to lead a major rabbinical organization and the first woman to lead any major Jewish co-ed religious organization in the United States; she became president of the CCAR in 2003. She was also the first woman and the first non-congregational rabbi to be elected as the President of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis; she was their president in 1995.
She was born in Los Angeles, and was ordained in New York in 1979 at the
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until ...
, a Reform seminary.
She became the first ordained rabbi of
Beth Chayim Chadashim (the world's first gay and lesbian synagogue recognized by Reform Judaism) in 1983.
While there she founded
NECHAMA, an
AIDS
The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
-education program for the Jewish community.
In 1988, she became the assistant director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations Pacific Southwest Council, where she worked for eleven years, eventually becoming director.
In 1999, she became the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Am in
Los Altos Hills, California.
She is now retired.
She is the coeditor of ''Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe'' (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2015).
[http://machzor.ccarpress.org]
See also
*
Timeline of women rabbis
This is a timeline of women rabbis:
* 1930s
** 1935: In Germany, Regina Jonas became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi.
* 1970s:
** 1972: Sally Priesand became America's first female rabbi ordained by a rabbinical seminary, and the secon ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marder, Janet
Reform women rabbis
American Reform rabbis
Living people
Rabbis from Los Angeles
People from Los Altos Hills, California
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American rabbis