Gender and Religious Leadership

Hartmut Bomhoff is senior research fellow at the Abraham Geiger College, University of Potsdam. Denise L. Eger is an international Jewish leader and social justice activist and founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami (West Hollywood, CA).Kathy Ehrensperger is research professor of New Testament in Jewish perspective at theAbraham Geiger Kolleg, University of Potsdam. Walter Homolka is professor of Jewish theology at the University of Potsdam and coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Jewish-Christian Relations.

Gender and Religious Leadership blends scholarly articles and reflective essays to tell the story of women's ordination as rabbis. It is an important resource for both scholars and lay readers who want to understand the trajectory of women's leadership in modern Judaism, as well as other faith traditions.

• Preface – Honoring the Legacy of Rabbiner Regina Jonas: A Call to Let Religious Women Write Alternative Narratives of the Future, Denise L. EgerAcknowledgmentsIntroduction – Women as Religious Leaders, Hartmut Bomhoff, Denise L. Eger, Kathy Ehrensperger, Walter HomolkaI. New Roles for Jewish Women in Modernizing Germany and America 1.The Discourse of the Other: The Transformation of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Germany, Yael Kupferberg 2.Patterns of Reform: Tracking Women’s Changing Roles in Synagogues and Communal Life within Nineteenth-Century American and German Judaism, Karla Goldman3.Women Students at the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Esther Seidel4.“The Woman in the House of God” (1926) Revisited, Hartmut Bomhoff 5.Paving the Road to Women Rabbis, 1889–2015, Pamela NadellII. Three Pioneers of Female Leadership: Henrietta Szold, Margarete Susman, and Regina Jonas6.Henrietta Szold: A “Pretty Certain Miriam”, Gail Twersky Reimer7.The Religiou