Sally Priesand

Sally Jane Priesand (born June 27, 1946) is America's first female rabbi ordained by a rabbinical seminary, and the second formally ordained female rabbi in Jewish history, after Regina Jonas. Priesand was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on June 3, 1972, at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati. After her ordination she served first as assistant and then as associate rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, and later led Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, New Jersey from 1981 until her retirement in 2006.

Sally Jane Priesand was born June 27, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio into a Jewish family. Her parents, Irving Theodore, an engineer, and Rose Elizabeth (Welch) Priesand were not religiously observant but they were active in Jewish organizations. Her mother served as president of the sisterhood of their temple, while her father was president of a B'nai B'rith lodge. Her family lit Shabbat candles, celebrated Chanukah and had a Passover Seder to which the children were encouraged to invite a non-Jewish friend to share in the festivities and learn about Judaism. The family first attended a non-egalitarian Conservative synagogue, and later attended Beth Israel-West Temple, a Reform congregation on Cleveland's West Side, where Priesand began to display a commitment to Judaism and Jewish life as a teenager. Priesand did not become Bat Mitzvah but was confirmed and continued her religious school education through the twelfth grade. At the age of 16, she decided she wanted to be a rabbi. She later described her decision to become a rabbi as “an affirmation of my belief in God, in the worth of each individual, and in Judaism as a way of life.”

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