Lila Kagedan

Lila Kagedan
Yeshiva	Yeshivat Maharat
Denomination	Open Orthodox
Semicha	Rabbi Avi Weiss

Lila Kagedan (36–37 years old) is a Canadian-born Jewish woman who in 2016 became the first female clergy member to preside in an Orthodox synagogue while using the title "rabbi." This occurred when Mount Freedom Jewish Center in New Jersey, which is Open Orthodox, hired Kagedan to join their "spiritual leadership team."

Kagedan moved with her family to Ottawa, Canada when she was about 8 years old, and she entered the 4th grade at the local Hillel Academy (now the Ottawa Jewish Community School). She then began high school at Machon Sarah High School for Girls, but switched to join the Yitzchak Rabin High School founded by her parents, Ian and Shoshana Kagedan, for its first graduating class.

Kagedan studied abroad in Israel at Midreshet Lindenbaum for her first year of college.

Kagedan's father died in 2014 from complications due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Kagedan trained and received ordination in the summer of 2015 from Yeshivat Maharat, the Orthodox women's religious training program founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss in Bronx, New York. Unlike other Maharat graduates, who assumed titles such as rabba (feminine version of "rabbi") or maharat (manhiga hilchatit ruchanit toranit, or "female leader of Jewish law, spirit and Torah"), Kagedan was the first to take the title "rabbi", because she said she felt that it was the most natural following her ordination.

Kagedan is a medical ethicist and serves as an instructor of bioethics at Touro College. She is also a Hadassah Brandeis Institute-Gender, Culture, Religion and Law research associate, and either serves or has served as a chaplain in various hospitals in the Boston and New York City areas.

...
Wikipedia