{"id":1247,"date":"2009-02-20T17:14:30","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T17:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l.php"},"modified":"2009-02-20T17:14:30","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T17:14:30","slug":"chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l","title":{"rendered":"Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) &#8211; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, who leads a small congregation in suburban Chicago, will become the second woman to head the rabbinical assembly of Judaism&#8217;s liberal Reform movement.<br \/>\nDreyfus, 57, is to be installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Feb. 28 in Jerusalem and will begin her tenure in Israel. The group represents nearly 2,000 Reform rabbis.<br \/>\nSince 1998, Dreyfus has served as rabbi of B&#8217;nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood, Ill. She said in a statement that one of her priorities will be reaching out to younger Jews.<br \/>\n&#8220;Many of them are very involved in religion and their Jewish lives but do not belong to congregations,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Some are involved in their own groups and online communities. We need to embrace and adapt to this young generation, as they are potentially the future of the Reform movement.&#8221;<br \/>\nThree of the four main U.S. rabbinical associations will be led by women when Dreyfus begins her tenure.<br \/>\nIn October, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld was named executive vice president of the Conservative movement&#8217;s Rabbinical Assembly. Rabbi Toba Spitzer, the first openly gay or lesbian person to head a rabbinical assembly, became president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association in 2007.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) &#8211; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, who leads a small congregation in suburban Chicago, will become the second woman to head the rabbinical assembly of Judaism&#8217;s liberal Reform movement. Dreyfus, 57, is to be installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Feb. 28 in Jerusalem and will begin her&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NEW YORK (AP) &#8211; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, who leads a small congregation in suburban Chicago, will become the second woman to head the rabbinical assembly of Judaism&#8217;s liberal Reform movement. Dreyfus, 57, is to be installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Feb. 28 in Jerusalem and will begin her&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-20T17:14:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly","og_description":"NEW YORK (AP) &#8211; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, who leads a small congregation in suburban Chicago, will become the second woman to head the rabbinical assembly of Judaism&#8217;s liberal Reform movement. Dreyfus, 57, is to be installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Feb. 28 in Jerusalem and will begin her&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-02-20T17:14:30+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l","name":"Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-20T17:14:30+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-20T17:14:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/chicago-area-female-rabbi-to-l#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Chicago-Area Female Rabbi to Lead Reform Rabbinical Assembly"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}