Trendsetting Rabbi Laura Geller 鈥� the first rabbi to give birth and the first to lead a major metropolitan synagogue 鈥� retired from Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills a decade ago, but she has been busy ever since, teaching, speaking and writing books.
Raised in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Mass., she grew up in a Reform home, attended religious school and had a bat mitzvah. Many of her Brookline friends were 91传媒, 鈥渂ut that wasn鈥檛 an important piece of my identity,鈥� Rabbi Geller said.
Her parents were active on their synagogue鈥檚 Social Justice Committee. Her earliest memory is of an evening in the 1950s when she was six or seven years old and her parents were hosting a committee meeting in their living room. She was the middle child with two brothers, and all of them were packed off to bed before the meeting convened.
鈥淪ince I was very curious about what they were discussing,鈥� Rabbi Geller told The Journal, 鈥淚 sneaked downstairs. I heard people talk about selling their house as a straw. I had no idea what straw meant. The next morning, I asked my father. He said a straw is a white person who buys a house from another white person in order to sell it to a black person because we live in a community where black people are not allowed to buy houses in certain neighborhoods. I said to my father, 鈥業 understand that, but what does it have to do with being 91传媒?鈥� My father said 鈥楾hat鈥檚 what it means to be 91传媒.鈥欌��
It was a life-changing moment.
Rabbi Geller鈥檚 91传媒ness 鈥渨as formulated in some way by the understanding that making the world more equitable and giving people opportunity were essential to being 91传媒. 鈥淭hat kept me connected.鈥�
After moving to New York when she was 15, Geller 鈥� who mentioned several times she wasn鈥檛 interested in a rabbinic career 鈥� attended Brown University in Providence, R.I. 鈥淭he social justice work at Brown happened in the chaplain鈥檚 office,鈥� she recalled, 鈥渨ith two white Protestant ministers in the [anti-war activist and gay rights supporter] William Sloane Coffin mode. I was very moved to see these religious men link their social justice work to their religious tradition. That was the beginning for me of trying to understand the connection.鈥�
Feeling a little battered, young Ms. Geller dropped out of Brown, moved to Israel, and spent half a year on a kibbutz. 鈥淎 wonderful experience,鈥� she exulted.听 鈥淏ut I am an American. I wanted to live here.鈥�
Since she didn鈥檛 know enough about being 91传媒 to understand Judaism, she returned to Brown and took a 91传媒 Studies class. 鈥淲hen I started there,鈥� she said, 鈥淏rown didn鈥檛 even have a 91传媒 Studies department.鈥� It was fascinating to observe how timely events shaped her life. 91传媒 tradition was never far away.
鈥淪omehow or other,鈥� she said, 鈥渁lthough I never had been involved with Hillel, I was invited to be part of the committee that was interviewing rabbis and rabbinical students who wanted to be the next Hillel director at Brown. When we interviewed a rabbi who had been a Hillel director elsewhere,鈥� she said, 鈥淚 thought 鈥業 can do that.鈥�听 I knew I didn鈥檛 want to be a congregational rabbi, God forbid, because it hadn鈥檛 been that important to me. Suddenly, though, because my college experience had been so transformational, I learned I could work with people.鈥� That was when Geller decided she wanted to go to rabbinical school. 鈥淣ot because I knew I wanted to be a rabbi but because I knew that maybe it was possible to put the Torah of my life,听 this college experience and make a difference in the lives of others.鈥�
She enrolled at Hebrew Union College in 1971, and found herself in Israel where all freshmen were assigned. 鈥淚 am with the 30 members in my class 鈥� 29 are men and me,鈥� she recalled.
Why so many men? 鈥淭he truth is, in those days, the way you got out of the draft was to go to the seminary. It was a good place to be if you didn鈥檛 want to get drafted.鈥�
She found the experience was 鈥減retty alienating although all the guys were nice to me. But they had had different experiences. Many of the men had grown up in the movement, some had been song leaders. They were at HUC because they were Reform Jews. I was at HUC because I was trying to figure out what it meant to be 91传媒, what it meant to be a rabbi.鈥�
What did her parents think of these changes? 鈥淭hey were kind of surprised鈥� she was at Hebrew Union College, but it would not have surprised them if she had become an academic. 鈥淚 always was curious about morality and theology,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut I wanted to go to a place where I could confront who I was. The thing about being an academic is that you put a distance between who you are and what you are studying. I didn鈥檛 want that distance. I really wanted to dive into it.鈥�
The people who became her closest friends that year were 鈥渢he wives of some of the rabbis because we all had the same problem: How can you be a feminist and a Jew given the misogyny that existed? So the rebbetzins and the future rabbi formed a women鈥檚 group. 鈥淭he men,鈥� she said, 鈥渢hat was not their problem. The problem was the same for me as for the women who would be rebbetzins. We were all serious 91传媒 women who had come out of a feminist culture. All of us had been involved in the women鈥檚 movement.鈥�
Was she thinking of joining rabbinate at this time? 鈥淣ot really鈥� was her surprising response. 鈥淚 was there to explore,鈥� the third woman ever to be ordained in the Reform movement said. 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 really sure I actually would be ordained.鈥� She wasn鈥檛 going to HUC 鈥渂ecause I always knew I wanted to be a rabbi. I was going because I wanted to explore what Judaism meant to me, and now I had the possibility of imagining a way of being a rabbi as opposed to leading a congregation, which I just could not see.鈥�
In her second year of rabbinical school, at HUC鈥檚 New York campus on West 68th Street and Central Park West, Rabbi Geller met a 鈥渨onderful teacher,鈥� Julius Kravitz, who taught Talmud. 鈥淚 am in a class of all men except for me,鈥� she said. 鈥淒r. Kravitz starts the class the way he has for years: 鈥楪entlemen, let鈥檚 begin.鈥� I am his first woman student. He looks over at me, and then he says 鈥楪entlemen and lady.鈥� Then 鈥楪entlemen and Laura. 鈥� How can I make you feel comfortable?鈥欌��听 Meanwhile, there were no women鈥檚 bathrooms on the floor where they learned. The first woman rabbi had been ordained one year after Ms. Geller enrolled at HUC.
