Angela Warnick Buchdahl
| Angela Warnick Buchdahl | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Angela Lee Warnick 8 July 1972 Seoul, South Korea |
| Residence | New York City |
| Education | - Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York (ordained cantor 1999, ordained rabbi 2001) - Yale University (BA in Religious Studies, 1994) |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Occupation | Rabbi |
| Known for | Rabbi, cantor |
| Spouse(s) | Jacob Buchdahl |
Angela Warnick Buchdahl (born Angela Lee Warnick; 1972) is an American rabbi. She is the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first Asian-American to be ordained as a hazzan (cantor) anywhere in the world. She is also the first woman to become both a rabbi and a cantor; others had become one or the other, but not both. In 2012 she was named by Newsweek as one of "America's 50 Most Influential Rabbis", and was recognized as one of the top five in The Forward's 2014 "Forward Fifty", a list of American Jews who have had the most impact on the national scene in the previous year.
Buchdahl was born in Seoul, South Korea, to a Japanese-born Korean Buddhist mother, Sulja Yi Warnick, and Frederick David Warnick, an American Ashkenazi Reform Jew, whose ancestors emigrated from Moinești, Romania, and Russia to the United States. At the age of five, she moved to the United States with her family. She was raised Jewish, attending Temple Beth El in Tacoma, Washington, which her great-grandparents had assisted in founding a century before. Like her mother, she became very involved in temple activities, and became a leader in school and within the youth group. At the age of 16, she visited Israel through Bronfman youth fellowships with other Jewish teenagers from the U.S. and for the first time had the authenticity of her Judaism questioned by those who believe that only the children of a Jewish mother can be Jewish. Her Orthodox roommate told Buchdahl she did not consider her to be Jewish, and Israelis asked if she knew the meaning of the Star of David on her necklace. She notes that her experience in Israel was a painful one, where she felt marginalized and invisible. As a college student, she spent her summers working as head song leader at Camp Swig, a Reform Jewish camp in Saratoga, California. At the age of 21 she underwent a conversion or "giyur", which she views as a "reaffirmation ceremony". She attended Yale University, where she was one of the first female members of Skull and Bones, a secret society which counts former President George W. Bush and Secretary of State John Kerry as members. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Yale University in 1994, and began her cantorial and rabbinic studies at Hebrew Union College.
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