In just a few short months the High Holy Days will be upon us. This year Temple Shirat Shalom will once again hold the High Holy Days Services at the Scottish Rite Cathedral on Hamilton Street in Allentown. We are honored and thrilled that Rabbi Sally Priesand will share the Bima with our own Cantor Sussman.
The following is a Bio on Rabbi Priesand:
Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, America’s first female rabbi, was ordained in June, 1972, by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. From 1981-2006, she served as Rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple with our own Cantor Sussman, becoming Rabbi Emerita upon her retirement.
Nationally, she has served on the Executive Board of both the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism. She also served as a member of the Board of Governors of HUC-JIR, as President of the Rabbinic Alumni Association, and for three years as editor of the CCAR Newsletter. In 2007, she invited her female rabbinic colleagues of all denominations to join her in donating their professional and personal papers to the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio, in order to document the history of women in the rabbinate.
Locally, she is an Honorary Vice President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County and President of Interfaith Neighbors. She also chairs the Clergy Advisory Committee of Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey and serves on the national Clergy Advisory Board of Planned Parenthood. She chairs the membership committee of the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education at Brookdale Community College and is an active supporter of the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County.
She is the recipient of many awards and honors. The most recent include receiving, in 2009, the Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Cincinnati. In 2010, in honor of its 125th anniversary, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING MAGAZINE named her one of 125 women who changed our lives and our world.
Rabbi Priesand, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, lives in Ocean Township, New Jersey, together with her Boston Terrier, Shadow.
Please join us at TSS for the upcoming High Holy Days. Here at TSS the High Holy Days are always a special time of year. We look forward to seeing you there.
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