Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, ordained on June 3, 1972, became the first woman in North America to achieve this historic milestone. She is universally acknowledged as a pioneer who has inspired generations of women across all denominations and around the globe.

As Honorary President of CCJ, Rabbi Priesand brings pioneering leadership, mentorship, and clarity of purpose which will help guide CCJ to attract, educate, and inspire the diverse range of exceptional rabbinic leaders essential to a flourishing Jewish future in North America.

After being ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, she served as Assistant, then Associate, Rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi at Temple Beth El in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and for 25 years as Rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, New Jersey until she retired in 2006, becoming Rabbi Emerita.

Her leadership roles include the Executive Board of both the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism, the Board of Governors of HUC-JIR, President of the Rabbinic Alumni Association, and editor of the CCAR Newsletter. In her local community, she served as President of Interfaith Neighbors, an organization whose primary purpose is to provide rental assistance and support services for the working poor. She was on the Board of the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education (CHHANGE) at Brookdale Community College, is an active supporter of the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County and has worked closely with Planned Parenthood on both the local and national level.

Her many awards and honors include: Honorary Membership in the Central Conference of American Rabbis; the Distinguished Alumnae Award from the Alumni Association of the University of Cincinnati; the Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Hobart and William Smith Colleges; and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Dignity Award from the YMCA of Greater Monmouth County. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of her ordination, the American Jewish Archives sponsored an exhibit called Sally Paved the Way, the Women’s Rabbinic Network established the Rabbi Sally J. Priesand Fund for Equity in Jewish Life and Monmouth Reform Temple dedicated its sanctuary in her name.

Rabbi Priesand is also an accomplished author having written Judaism and the New Woman, and contributed to Women Rabbis: Exploration and Celebration as well as A Treasury of Favorite Sermons by Leading American Rabbis, and most recently to The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate. She also wrote the foreword for Women Rabbis in the Pulpit: A Collection of Sermons by female rabbis in the United Kingdom, for This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, a book pf poetry and prayer by Alden Solovy, and for Torah Tutor: A Contemporary Torah Study Guide by Rabbi Lenore Bohm.

In 2022, a children’s book called Sally Opened Doors was written about her by her colleague, Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, who is a member of the Board of Trustees of CCJ. Also that year, a photograph of Rabbi Priesand was taken by famed photographer Joan L. Roth and now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.