Marty Winter 2011.qxd - Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz

Winter 2011
Spring 2003
Women are the only true majority in Brooklyn so it just
makes sense that we’re making history when it comes to female
rabbis. The other boroughs may have women in associate
or assistant rabbi positions, but in Brooklyn, women
have attained the top spiritual post. Here are five Brooklyn
rabbis who are leading the way!
“The Jewish community has been immeasurably enriched
by the presence of women in all aspects of Jewish
life,” said Rabbi Linda Henry Goodman, rabbi of Union
Temple of Brooklyn in Prospect Heights, where she has
been the spiritual leader since 1992. Rabbi Goodman’s Reform
congregation consists of a healthy mix of neighborhood
folks, from baby boomers to seniors to young Jewish
families. In 2012, Rabbi Goodman also will become the first
ever female president of the New York Board of Rabbis.
Goodman isn’t alone in her pioneering ways. Rabbi Ellen
Lippmann formed a progressive congregation, Kolot
Chayeinu in Park Slope, which just celebrated its 18th birthday.
Lippmann leads a congregation that, according to its mission
statement, “wrestles with tradition and refuses to be satisfied
with the world as it is.” Lippmann’s LGBTQ-and
everyone else-friendly congregation consists of 375 members,
mostly in their 30s and 40s, but Lippmann has noticed a recent
surge in membership from residents in their 20s, from all
walks of life and from all corners of Brooklyn.
Female rabbis are even heading up more traditional synagogues
like the longstanding conservative Bay Ridge Jewish
Center in Bay Ridge, which consists of mostly older members
and serves many Russians. This past July, Rabbi Dina Rosenberg
became the first female clergy hired there and she believes
WWW.BROOKLYN-USA.ORG
A WOMAN’S PLACE IS ON THE BIMAH!
WHERE thought NEW YORK it was CITY something BEGINS she could actually achieve. “I did not
think it was possible for a woman to be the rabbi of a conservative
synagogue,” she said. “Then, when I was in high school,
the Jewish Theological Seminary ordained its first rabbi and
this long-held dream became a possibility.”
Last but not least, this name might sound familiar. Rabbi
Heidi Hoover of Temple Beth Emeth v’Ohr Progressive
Shaari Zedek in Flatbush was featured in Brooklyn!! in 2009
back when she was a rabbinical student. In July 2011, Rabbi
Hoover became one of the newest female rabbis to serve
Brooklyn’s Jewish population, but she chooses to see herself
not as a pioneer, but as part of the great tradition that is Judaism.
“I don’t think of myself as a female rabbi, but as a rabbi,”
she said. “My most important task as a rabbi is to bring
4 Rabbis Heidi Hoover, Carie Carter, Dina Rosenberg, Linda people into a living tradition, helping them become knowl-
Goodman and Ellen Lippmann are making Brooklyn proud!
edgeable about it and empowering them to wrestle with it and
make it their own.”
that her congregation is growing to accept her quickly after
Helen Reddy once sang, “I am woman, hear me roar!” But
some initial doubts. “While there was much apprehension
maybe the song should go, “I am rabbi, watch me soar,” at least
about my appointment from the Russian community, I believe
here in Brooklyn, where the majority of the population just
that many of them have turned a new leaf and they have seen
cannot be “ignored.”
my success,” Rosenberg said. So far, the rabbi is definitely on
And congratulations to Cantor Suzanne Bernstein, recently
the right track. Bay Ridge Jewish Center’s membership has in-
installed as new spiritual leader of the Progressive Temple
creased by 13 percent since Rosenberg was appointed.
Beth Ahavath Sholom in Borough Park.
The Park Slope Jewish Center (PSJC) in Park Slope, also
Union Temple of Brooklyn, 17 Eastern Parkway (718)
a conservative synagogue, is following its own tradition of fe- 638-7600. Kolot Chayeinu, 1012 Eighth Ave. (718) 390-7493.
male rabbis. PSJC, whose membership consists mostly of fam- Bay Ridge Jewish Center, 405 81st St. (718) 836-3103. The
ilies of all kinds from the Park Slope area, hired its first female Park Slope Jewish Center, 1320 Eighth Ave. (718) 768-1453.
rabbi in the 1980s. In 2000, it appointed Rabbi Carie Carter. Temple Beth Emeth v’Ohr Progressive Shaari Zedek, 83
Carter, who wanted to be a rabbi since childhood, never Marlborough Rd. (718) 282-1596.