{{Short description|First second-career female rabbi in Judaism}} right|thumb|Helene Ferris, May 2, 2010, officiating a wedding '''Helene Ferris''' is the first second-career female rabbi in Judaism.<ref name="swfs">{{cite web|url=http://www.swfs.org/4-decades-women-rabbis/ |title=Stephen Wise Free Synagogue > 4 Decades of Women Rabbis In the Rabbinate and SWFS |publisher=Swfs.org |accessdate=2012-09-03 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120525181437/http://www.swfs.org/4-decades-women-rabbis/ |archivedate=2012-05-25 }}</ref>
==Early Career and Rabbinic Education== Helene Ferris began her career as a first grade teacher and was a stay at home mother before deciding to pursue the rabbinate in 1976 and attending Hebrew Union College (HUC), which requires spending the first of 5 years in Israel. Her 3 children were 7-13 at the time. They accompanied her to Israel, where they attended school, while her husband, Alan, stayed behind in New York.<ref name="Shaw-2008">{{Cite news |last=Shaw |first=Dan |date=2008-02-03 |title=He Got His Workshop, She Got Her Privacy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/realestate/03habi.html |access-date=2025-07-09 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=Winter 2006–2007 |title=Ordained |url=https://lilith.org/articles/ordained/ |access-date=2025-07-10 |website=Lilith Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Rabbinical career == Ferris was ordained by the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1981, and worked as an associate rabbi in the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York from 1981 until 1991 when she felt she had reached the proverbial "glass ceiling".<ref name="swfs" /><ref>{{cite web |last=Schwartz |first=Penny |date=2011-08-04 |title=In their 40s and 50s, embarking on second careers as rabbis {{!}} |url=http://jewishworldnews.org/2011/08/04/in-their-40s-and-50s-embarking-on-second-careers-as-rabbis/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130415032825/http://jewishworldnews.org/2011/08/04/in-their-40s-and-50s-embarking-on-second-careers-as-rabbis/ |archive-date=2013-04-15 |accessdate=2012-09-03 |website=The Jewish World |publisher=}}</ref><ref name="Shaw-2008" /> From 1991 until her retirement in 2006, Ferris was the chief rabbi at Temple Israel of Northern Westchester, a Reform synagogue in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.<ref name="Shaw-2008" />
Among her most well-known activities, on December 1, 1988, Ferris helped prepare a prayer service and read from the Torah at the Western Wall, along with over 70 other Jewish women. This was the first time in history Jewish women prayed together and read from the Torah together at the Western Wall.<ref>{{cite web |title=About |url=http://womenofthewall.org.il/about/ |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001230745/http://womenofthewall.org.il/about/ |archivedate=2012-10-01 |accessdate=2012-09-03 |website=Women of the Wall |publisher=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Chesler |first=Phyllis |author-link=Phyllis Chesler |title=The Walls Came Tumbling Down: How Jewish Feminists Made History :: The Phyllis Chesler Organization |url=http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/736/the-walls-came-tumbling-down-how-jewish-feminists |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120729181218/http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/736/the-walls-came-tumbling-down-how-jewish-feminists |archivedate=2012-07-29 |accessdate=2012-09-03 |publisher=Phyllis Chesler}}</ref><ref name="shaaraytefilanyc">{{cite web|url=http://www.shaaraytefilanyc.org/article.aspx?id=19327352921 |title=Temple Shaaray Tefila - New York City |publisher=Shaaraytefilanyc.org |accessdate=2012-09-03 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107020803/http://www.shaaraytefilanyc.org/article.aspx?id=19327352921 |archivedate=2012-11-07 }}</ref> Ferris is a board member of the International Committee for Women of the Wall (ICWOW), which is a group working to give women the right to lead public prayers at the Western Wall, which is now illegal.<ref name="shaaraytefilanyc" />
Ferris supports the inclusion of lesbian and gay Jews in religious life. In 1986, she organized a conference on lesbian and gay Jews in New York City.<ref name="tinw">{{Cite web |title=Temple Israel of Northern Westchester |url=https://www.tinw.org/ |access-date=2025-07-11 |website=www.tinw.org}}</ref> In 1989 she presided over a same-sex wedding ceremony for Ileen Kaufman and Jan Catalfumo; few rabbis would officiate such a ceremony in those days.<ref>{{cite web |last=Gilbert |first=Beth |date=1996 |title=Gays & Lesbians Under the Chupah |url=http://reformjudaismmag.net/696bg.html |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111019094110/http://reformjudaismmag.net/696bg.html |archivedate=2011-10-19 |accessdate=2012-09-03 |website=Reform Judaism Magazine |publisher=}}</ref>
In 2007, Letty Cottin Pogrebin chose her as one of "The Other Fifty Top Rabbis in America."<ref>{{cite web |date=2007-04-16 |title=Rabbis, Rabbis Everywhere! |url=http://www.lilith.org/blog/2007/04/rabbis-rabbis-everywhere/ |accessdate=2012-09-03 |website=Lilith.org |publisher=}}</ref> She has written for ''Reform Judaism'' magazine.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ferris |first=Helene |date=2006 |title=Great-Grandfather's Blessings |url=http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1111 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222171516/http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1111 |archive-date=2010-12-22 |access-date=2025-07-09 |website=Reform Judaism Magazine}}</ref>
==See also== *Timeline of women rabbis
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{official website|http://lifecyclerabbiny.com/}} {{Women rabbis}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferris, Helene}} Category:Living people Category:American Reform rabbis Category:Reform women rabbis Category:People from Croton-on-Hudson, New York Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:21st-century American rabbis