Rachel Cowan

Rachel Cowan (May 29, 1941 – August 31, 2018) was a rabbi, leader, and spiritual innovator who founded the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She helped interfaith families find more welcoming community in Jewish ritual life and was the mother of the "Jewish Healing" movement.

Early life, education, and roots of activism Rachel Ann Brown was born May 29, 1941 in Princeton, NJ to Arthur A. Brown, a mathematician who could trace his ancestry to the Mayflower and Margaret Warren Brown, whose roots went back to Puritan days and who worked to create children's school libraries in the Boston public schools. They spent time in Mississippi registering Black voters and later after they married in 1965 served in the Peace Corps in Ecuador.

Rachel Cowan and her husband became advocates for interfaith couples, co-authoring the book Mixed Blessings: Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks in an Interfaith Marriage (1988). She traveled the country to speak with communities about how to integrate non-Jewish members of interfaith families into synagogue life.

Paul was diagnosed with leukemia in September 1987 and died a year later. Rachel and her Jewish feminist friends lamented the scarcity of Jewish spiritual care resources for those facing serious illness and their families. While Christian communities had well-established models of spiritual healing services and other faith-based healing rituals, Jewish communal offerings were limited to hospital chaplains, a few hospices, rabbinic visits to the seriously ill, and the traditional practices of bikur holim and communal prayers for healing. They recognized a deep and widespread need for Jewish spiritual and communal resources dedicated to healing, especially beyond medical settings. Pioneering efforts to integrate spiritual practices to support those who were suffering from illness or personal loss, she co-founded the Jewish Healing Center in 1990.

Personal life and passing Rachel and Paul Cowan were married in 1965 and had two children.