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Reproductive Rights Shabbat

Torah Study at 9:15 AM

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Service at 10:30 AM

Temple Emanu-El is proud to host Reproductive Rights Shabbat, a program of the NCJW, the National Council of Jewish Women, on Saturday, January 29. We will be welcoming Rabbi Dr. Linda Henry Goodman to preach during our Shabbat morning services and to lead a Torah study session.

The service and Torah study will both be virtual. Both the Torah study and worship service are open to all.

Rabbi Linda Henry Goodman is no stranger to Temple Emanu-El.  During her senior year at Hebrew Union College in New York, she served here as a rabbinic intern, and then upon her ordination in 1985 she became the first woman to serve on the rabbinic staff as Assistant Rabbi.  She then went on to serve a congregation in West Hempstead, Long Island, and as Hillel Director at Adelphi University.  She also joined the Jewish Studies faculties of Molloy College and the NY Theological Seminary.  In 1992 she was called to the pulpit of Union Temple of Brooklyn, where she served with devotion for 26 years until her retirement in 2018, when she became Rabbi Emerita.

As a native New Yorker, she was particularly honored in 2012 to become the first woman to be elected President of The New York Board of Rabbis.  She is also a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.  She holds a Master of Arts in Hebrew Literature, a Doctor of Ministry degree, and an Honorary Doctor of Divinity, all from Hebrew Union College.

Rabbi Goodman has long been a champion of women’s rights, outspokenly fighting to promote and protect reproductive choice and health care access for women in New York State and throughout the country. She served on the national board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, has participated actively in Reform Jewish Voice of New York State, and serves on the Clergy Advisory Board of Concerned Clergy for Choice in Albany, a partner organization of Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts.   She also has been an activist in the movement to reach an equitable conclusion to the Kotel Agreement – the Western Wall in Jerusalem – and has been an active member of Women of the Wall, virtually since the inception of the organization, and frequently speaks on its behalf here in the United States.

She is married to Rabbi Stephen Wise Goodman, and they have an adult son, Philip.