This is an editorial that was written by Jacob Rader Marcus and published on May 25, 1972 in The Sentinel, the Chicago Jewish newspaper. It is a reaction to the news of the ordination of Sally Priesand, the first woman to be ordained from the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Marcus mentions that while there have always been women studying at HUC, Priesand is the first to been ordained as a rabbi. He also refers to Regina Jonas who completed rabbinical studies in Germany in the 1930s, and was privately ordained by Rev. Dr. Max Dienenman, when the official licensing authorities refused to ordain her. Regina Jonas was later deported to the Theresienstadt camp and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. The article mentions that Sally Priesand, “Rabbi Sally” is “attractive, but at this juncture, she seems not to be interested in marriage.” The writer goes on to wonder what the partner of a female rabbi might be called, with one suggestion being “the rabbit”! He also provides a short history of other religions in America who have ordained women. After discussing the female rabbinate in a lighthearted manner, using gender stereotypes that would not be deemed appropriate today, Marcus states his confidence that she will be a good rabbi: “she is competent and unpretentious, a good speaker and a fine human being.” He ends his article by saying that: “it is sad to think that American Jewry has had to wait so long” and agreeing with Galileo that “the earth does move but -- sometimes it moves very, very slowly.”
Would You Like to Know More?
Sally Priesand – Sally Priesand was the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi in America. On June 3, 1972, Priesand graduated from the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, Ohio and was ordained by HUC president, Alfred Gottschalk. Priesand was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1946 and grew up in the Reform movement. In 1964, she attended the University of Cincinnati, and in 1968 she was accepted to HUC-JIR’s rabbinical school. She received a lot of attention as it became known that she would be the first woman rabbi to be ordained by a seminary. Preisand held several student pulpits while she was in school, and upon graduation, she took the position of assistant and then associate rabbi at the prestigious Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City. She left the synagogue in 1979 when the board would not guarantee that she would succeed the senior rabbi who was unwell at the time. After leaving Stephen Wise, Priesand found it difficult to find a position due to the unwillingness of synagogue boards to hire a woman rabbi. Sally Priesand retired in 2006, after holding various rabbinic positions for 30 years.
Reform Judaism – Reform Judaism, which was started in Germany and was introduced to the United States in the mid-1800s, is the largest Jewish denomination in the United States. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900) was an early leader in the Reform movement and is credited with founding most if its institutions and writing the first Reform prayer book. Wise spent most of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, which houses the main campus of the Hebrew Union College. Reform Judaism views the Torah as an historic work that was written by people but was divinely inspired. It claims that the Torah holds timeless truths and messages but must be adapted to suit the times of the day. In Reform Judaism, the individual, after studying the tradition, chooses to observe the laws that they believe bring them closer to God. Reform Judaism stresses egalitarianism and social action. Sally Priesand, the first woman rabbi ordained in America, was ordained by the Reform movement in 1972. In 1983, the Reform movement adopted a resolution that declared a person Jewish if either parent was Jewish and the person makes “appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people.” This is a departure from other traditional branches of Judaism that define a Jew as someone born to a Jewish mother. Reform Judaism is known for welcoming interfaith families and members of the LGBTQ community. Social action and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) are hallmarks of Reform Judaism, and Reform Jews work extensively to bring peace, freedom, and justice to all people.
Jewish Community of the United States – At the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, between 1,500 and 2,500 Jews were living in the United States, most of them Sephardi. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a wave of German Jews, largely secular and educated, arrived in the United States. Another wave of immigration arrived from Eastern Europe, a result of pogroms and the difficult economic situation in these countries . Most of these new immigrants were Ashkenazi and spoke mainly Yiddish. They arrived, believing that the United States was a “goldene medina,” a country of gold, but the reality was hard. Many of the newcomers worked as manual labourers in difficult conditions, such as in the sweatshops in New York’s Lower East Side. By the beginning of the twentieth century, more than a million Jews lived in the United States, most of them in New York City. Despite immigration quotas, by 1940 the American Jewish population numbered more the 4.5 million. While the first generation of immigrants lived in close-knit Yiddish-speaking communities, the next generation integrated quickly and, in many cases, assimilated into American society and became prominent in many areas of American life. Today American Jews are extremely influential in American politics, business, academia, and culture. Over the last few decades Jews from many countries, such as Russia, Iran, and Israel, have arrived in the United States. The American Jewish community is the second largest Jewish community in the world, numbering between 5.5 and 7 million people. More than 2 million Jews live in New York, making it the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. Half of American Jews consider themselves religious, and there are many Jewish organisations and institutions in the country.
The Chicago Sentinel - The Chicago Sentinel, a weekly newspaper for the Chicago Jewish community, was one of the longest continuously published Jewish weeklies in the United States. The first issue of the Sentinel was published on February 4, 1911. The newspaper focused on cultural events and included many eye-catching illustrations and photographs. It also published short stories and reports about events in the various Jewish communities. The Sentinel differed from many other English-language, often highbrow, Jewish weeklies, because it reached out to the Zionist immigrants who preferred to read in English and not Yiddish. The Sentinel is a treasure trove for social, cultural, and religious historians who are interested in American Jewish life outside of New York during the twentieth century.
