Rabbi’s Bulletin Column November – December 2025

Celebrating 40 Years of Conservative Women Rabbis

Mazal Tov! It’s a big year for the Conservative Movement. We are marking 40 years of ordaining women as Rabbis, and it’s a big deal!

I’m here to share a little bit of history and current stats about woman rabbis, as well as just a smattering of their (I mean our) contributions to the Jewish world.

Here’s a tiny bit of history:

• 1935: Regina Jonas is privately ordained in Germany, becoming the first woman in modern history to be ordained a rabbi.

• 1972: Sally Priesand is ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the first woman ordained by a rabbinical seminary in America. This was a pivotal moment for the Reform movement.

• 1974: Sandy Eisenberg Sasso becomes the first female rabbi in Reconstructionist Judaism.

• 1975: Jackie Tabick becomes the first female rabbi in Britain.

• 1985: Amy Eilberg becomes the first female rabbis in the Conservative movement.

Since 1985, the Conservative Movement has ordained around 300 women rabbis, which is about 20% of the entire Conservative rabbinate.

Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz, who is concluding her term as the first female Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), spoke about the contributions of women rabbis to the Jewish world in her recent online lecture “Women As Change Agents.” From my perspective, women rabbis have made huge strides for the Jewish people, and in so many ways. On the one hand, the presence and leadership of Conservative women rabbis over 40 years have removed social barriers that used to prevent women and girls from thinking about ordination. That’s not even a thing anymore. A rabbi can care for individuals and lead a community, regardless of gender. On the other hand, women rabbis have made very particular strides in leadership and halachic development, in legal papers on contraception, Assisted Reproductive Therapies, mourning preterm infant death, egalitarian marriage, and more egalitarian divorce. It turns out that a woman’s perspective is key to advancing Jewish law, tradition, and experience.

Since we began ordaining women, the Jewish world has celebrated other leadership milestones. In 2006, JTS and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles opened their doors to LGBTQ+ students. In 2013, The Open Orthodox movement began ordaining women as spiritual leaders and legal authorities through Yeshivat Maharat.

For me, serving as a rabbi is incredibly meaningful, and mostly, it has nothing to do with my gender identity. That itself is a gift, and I am grateful to Rabbi Amy Eilberg and the women who pushed, nudged, argued, and eventually shattered this “stained glass ceiling”. I chuckle every time I hear that joke about little boys asking whether boys can be rabbis. Anyone who wants to serve the Jewish people as a rabbi can do just that.

I’ll be traveling to a celebratory 40 Years of Women Rabbis retreat in November, along with about 70 of my female colleagues. And just before I leave, on November 7-8, I’ll be hosting a colleague Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky (ordained at JTS in 2012) for a Shabbat here in Norwalk—please come Friday night and Shabbat morning to learn with her!

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what the future of the Conservative rabbinate looks like. Maybe someone from our own Congregation Beth El will become a rabbi!!

Rabbi Paskind and female classmates on Ordination day, May 7, 2010