Rachel Adler

Rachel Adler (born Ruthelyn Rubin; July 2, 1943 ) is an American theologian who is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus.

Adler was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. Her approach to God is Levinasian and her approach to gender is constructivist.

Life Adler was born in Chicago on July 20, 1943, to Herman Rubin, an executive at a large insurance company, and Lorraine Rubin (née Helman), the chairwoman of a large guidance department at a suburban high school. In 1946, the Rubins had another daughter, Laurel. While Adler was raised Reform, she became Orthodox in her teens as a ba'al teshuva.

On December 20, 1964, while still studying at Northwestern University, Adler married Moshe Adler, an Orthodox rabbi. Adler went on to graduate with her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English Literature from Northwestern University in 1965 and 1966. Adler's early publications "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman," in Davka and "Tum'ah and Toharah: Ends and Beginnings" in 1971 and 1972, respectively, gained her international attention as a feminist spokesperson and Orthodox feminist. "Tum'ah and Tohara" appeared in the first volume of the influential Jewish Catalog series a "do-it-yourself kit" by Michael and Sharon Strassfeld and Richard Siegel, then members of Boston's Havurat Shalom.

Adler gave birth to a son, Amitai Bezalel, in 1973. During the 1970s, while active as an Orthodox Rebbetzin at the Los Angeles and Minnesota Hillel Houses, Adler completed all coursework for her doctorate in English. She went on to receive a Master of Social Work in 1980 and worked as a therapist for several years. In the 1980s, Adler's writings became increasingly critical of Niddah and classical rabbinics; she ultimately separated from the Orthodox movement and returned to Reform Judaism. According to writer Maggie Anton, who joined the class in 1992, it was the first opportunity for lay women in Los Angeles to study Talmud together.

Adler completed her PhD degree in 1997 with her doctoral dissertation was titled "Justice and Peace Have Kissed: A Feminist Theology of Judaism." In 2013, Adler became the first person to hold the Rabbi David Ellenson Chair in Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College.

In 2020, Adler retired, though she has continued to teach virtually as a Professor Emerita at HUC-JIR.

Religious Perspectives In 1971, while identifying as an Orthodox Jew (though she previously and later identified as Reform Jewish), she published an article entitled "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman," in Davka magazine; according to historian Paula Hyman, this article was a trailblazer in analyzing the status of Jewish women using feminism.

In 1983, she published an essay in Moment entitled "I've Had Nothing Yet, So I Can't Take More," in which she criticized rabbinic tradition for making women "a focus of the sacred rather than active participants in its processes," and declared that being a Jewish woman "is very much like being Alice at the Hatter's tea party. We did not participate in making the rules, nor were we there at the beginning of the party." which Adler viewed as not according with feminist ideals of equality between the sexes.

Adler is the author of many articles that have appeared in Blackwell's Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Beginning Anew: A Woman's Companion to the High Holy Days, Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, Lifecycles, The Jewish Condition, and On Being a Jewish Feminist.

Recognition

2023: IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award silver medal in religion for Holy Mysticat: Jewish Wisdom Stories by a Feline Mystic 2022: The 2022 art exhibit “Holy Sparks”, shown among other places at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, featured art about twenty-four female rabbis who were firsts in some way; Marilee Tolwin created the artwork about Adler that was in that exhibit. 2008: Jewish Book Award, best book of the year in any category, for The Torah: A Women's Commentary, for which Adler was on the editorial board and contributed “Contemporary Reflections” commentaries on Bereishit, Mishpatim, and Va’yakheil 1999: National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought by the Jewish Book Council, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics

Publications The following is an incomplete list of Adler's publications.

Books

1998: Engendering Judaism : An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. 2020: Holy Mysticat: Jewish Wisdom Stories by a Feline Mystic

Articles

1971: The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman, Davka (republished in 1978 in Menachem Marc Kellner (ed.), Contemporary Jewish Ethics, pp. 347– 54. New York: Sanhedrin Press. ) 1972: Tum'ah and Toharah: Ends and Beginnings, The Jewish Catalogue 1974: Feminism, a Cause for the Halachic, Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas 1974: Abortion -the Need to Change Jewish Law, Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas 1976: Reprint of Tum'ah and Toharah: Ends and Beginnings in E. Koltun (ed.), The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, pp. 63– 71. New York: Schocken., 1983: I’ve Had Nothing Yet, So I Can't Take More, Moment 1985: A Letter to Fahtma, Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas 1992: Talking Our Way In, Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas 1993: In your blood, live: re-visions of a theology of purity, Tikkun 2004: "To Live Outside the Law, You Must Be Honest"- Boundaries, Borderlands and the Ethics of Cultural Negotiation, The Reconstructionist

2008: "Contemporary Reflections” commentaries on Bereishit, Mishpatim, and Va’yakheil in The Torah: A Women's Commentary 2013: Critiquing and Rethinking Kiddushin, AJS Perspectives: The Magazine of the Association for Jewish Studies 2013: An Extraordinary Light, Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas

Liturgy

1982: Second Hymn to the Shekhinah, Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review 1985: Third Hymn to the Shekhina, Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review