Sally Opened Doors: The Story of the First Woman Rabbi

Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, America's first female rabbi, finished her rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in June 1972. At that time, there were no women reaching at seminaries and few Jewish women leaders. One of the professors would not sign her diploma. Congregations were reluctant to bring a woman to their pulpits. She was the last person in her graduating class to be offered a job.Rabbi Priesand became the assistant rabbi at a large synagogue in New York City, where she served for seven years, but when the congregation was ready to hire its senior rabbi, she was not even considered. For two years she was not able to find a synagogue willing to accept a woman as its only rabbi. Then in 1981 she became the rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple in New Jersey, where she served for twenty-five years, until her retirement, upon which she became rabbi emerita.Rabbi Sally Priesand became a leader in the Reform movement: she introduced inclusive God-language into worship; and she worked on behalf of those experiencing poverty, hunger, and homelessness.Thirty-seven years before Sally, another woman, Regina Jonas, has become a rabbi in Berlin, Germany, but her story was forgotten for a long time. With Sally, a new era began for women who wanted to become rabbis. Two years after her ordination, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ordained Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso (1974). The Conservative movement ordained Rabbi Amy Eilberg in 1985, and Open Orthodoxy ordained Rabbi Sara Hurwitz in 2000. There are more than a thousand women rabbis in the world today.

"Sally Opened Doors is a captivating and beautifully illustrated work . . . It provides a model of perseverance that will inspire young people to create a more just world." --Rabbi David Ellenson, Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion"A beautiful and inspiring story of how one young woman's vision, determination, and generosity enabled her to fulfill her dreams and also make history." --Dr. Judith Rosenbaum, CEO, The Jewish Women's Archive"Young readers will come away with an important and timeless lesson: 'Get up and get on with it.' Rabbi Sandy Sasso counsels, and follow your dreams. This delightful story book constitutes a moving tribute from one remarkable trailblazer to another." --Dr. Gary P. Zola, Professor, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Executive Director, The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives"Sally Opened Doors reminds us that everything is possible with hope, courage, and perseverance. In addition to its powerful life lessons, this book celebrates our communal history through Rabbi Sally Priesand's unique story." --Rabbi Mary L. Zamore, Executive Director, The Women's Rabbinic Network"The mod­ern era has intro­duced many changes into the livesof Jew­ish women. Undoubt­ed­ly, one of the most notable was the Reformmovement’s 1972& ordi­na­tion of Sal­ly Priesand as the first Amer­i­canfemale rab­bi. As a token of our grat­i­tude, we have the very Jew­ishoblig­a­tion to teach chil­dren about her coura­geous per­sis­tence. Priesanddid indeed open doors for those women, and men, who acknowl­edged the need forgen­der reform in tra­di­tion­al Jew­ish spaces. Fifty years lat­er, SandyEisen­berg Sas­so and Margeaux Lucas have craft­ed an acces­si­ble intro­duc­tionto Rab­bi Priesand’s life, per­fect for young read­ers who may not real­ize howfirm­ly shut those doors once were.While Lucas’s pic­tures cap­ture the time peri­od, they alsodepict a mod­ern­iza­tion that is cen­tral to Priesand’s quest. Forinstance, when she and a friend are con­vers­ing about the like­ly oppo­si­tionto women in the rab­binate, their dark brown hair and mid-cen­tu­ry fab­ric pat­ternsstand out against the more gener­ic con­gre­gants seat­ed in frontof them.For Sasso’s part, much of the sto­ry relies on invent­ed dia­logueto advance the nar­ra­tive. While each sen­tence accu­rate­ly reflects the atti­tudesof the era, the cumu­la­tive effect is some­what ide­o­log­i­cal. "I nowknow what I want to do. I want to be a rab­bi … like you,"remarks one grate­ful young woman. Priesand’s skep­ti­cal friend, whose ​"jawdropped" at the mere notion of female rab­bis, warns her that no one willaccept her aspi­ra­tions: "Sal­ly … look around! Women serve cof­fee,tea, and cake after ser­vices … they nev­er take out the Torah." There is nodis­put­ing the real­i­ty of these prej­u­dices, but the char­ac­ters who artic­u­latethem seem more like sym­bol­ic adver­saries than real people. Sal­ly Opened Doors is effec­tive in that it focus­eson the most impor­tant parts of Priesand’s life, sim­pli­fy­ing cer­tain issuesfor young read­ers and main­tain­ing the momen­tum of an excit­ing sto­ry. Yetsome nuances are impor­tant. One vis­i­tor to Priesand’s syn­a­gogue rude­lycon­tends, ​"A woman rab­bi? Out­ra­geous! You start open­ing the door tochange, and this is what hap­pens." Here it would be appro­pri­ate for Sas­soto com­ment on the irony of his objec­tion. Reform Judaism, after all, was pred­i­cat­edon a per­ceived need for change. Priesand’s main con­cern was not resis­tanceto change in gen­er­al, but the hypocrisy of those who opposed reform pure­lyon the basis of gender.Sas­so and Lucas show­case a Priesand who refus­es tolet naysay­ers dis­cour­age her. Adults read­ing this book with chil­dren willhave oppor­tu­ni­ties to dis­cuss the lim­its imposed on women in the past andpresent, and to con­sid­er the ways in which a lit­tle bit of anger mightbe pro­duc­tive in the face of ongo­ing inequal­i­ty. We are for­tu­nate tohave this new resource about a trail­blaz­ing Jew­ish fem­i­nist who wouldnot take no for an answer." --Emily Schneider, The Jewish Book Council