Stacy Offner
Stacy Offner is an openly lesbian American rabbi.[1][2] She was the first openly lesbian rabbi hired by a mainstream Jewish congregation, and the first female rabbi in Minnesota. She also became the first rabbi elected chaplain of the Minnesota Senate, the first female vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and the first woman to serve on the [U.S.] national rabbinical pension board.[1][2][3]
Biography
[edit | edit source]She graduated magna cum laude from Kenyon College and earned an M.A. in Hebrew literature from Hebrew Union College in New York.[4][5] She also has an honorary degree from Hebrew Union College, where she was ordained in 1984.[4] That year she became the first female rabbi in Minnesota.[2][5][6]
However, she was fired from her job as associate rabbi when she came out as a lesbian in 1987.[1][5] She left with some of her congregants and in 1988 they founded Shir Tikvah Congregation, a Reform congregation in Minneapolis, where she was the first rabbi.[2][5][6][7] Thus in 1988, she became the first openly lesbian rabbi hired by a mainstream Jewish congregation (Shir Tikvah).[8][9]
Stacy Offner remained at Shir Tikvah until 2008 when she became the first female vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, a position she held for two years.[2][10] She later served as a rabbi at Adath Emanu-El in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.[4] On July 11, 2012, she became the rabbi of Temple Beth Tikvah in Madison, Connecticut.[11] She stepped down from this position in June 2021.[12]
Publications
[edit | edit source]Her writing has been featured in the journal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR Journal).[13]
See also
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b c Alpert, R.T., Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition, Columbia University Press, 1998.
- ^ a b c d e Rabbi Offner Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine, Union for Reform Judaism website. Retrieved 2011-11-05.
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- ^ Dana Evan Kaplan Contemporary American Judaism: transformation and renewal Columbia University Press, 2009 Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)., p. 255
- ^ Our Roots. Shir Tikvah. Retrieved on 2010-11-30.
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Finding aid to the Rabbi Stacy Offner papers at the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries.
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- American Reform rabbis
- Reform women rabbis
- LGBTQ rabbis
- Living people
- Kenyon College alumni
- Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion alumni
- 21st-century American rabbis
- 21st-century American women
- 20th-century American rabbis
- 20th-century American women
- 21st-century American LGBTQ people
- 20th-century American LGBTQ people
- 20th-century births