decision to attend rabbinical school and hearing her-
self finally say, 'All right, God, I'm going. I'm going."
Cantor Corrsin's inspiration for her chosen piofes-
sion came first from her grandfather, Hyman
Rottenberg, who had been a lay cantor at
Congregation B'nai David. As an adult in New York
City, Cantor Corrsin worked as a cantorial soloist in
a small Brooklyn synagogue. "I loved it," she says.
"So, after consultation with my husband, I decided
to apply to cantorial school."
By the end of her first year at the HUC-JIR
School of Sacred Music's Jerusalem campus, Cantor
Corrsin says, "I knew I had made the right choice
for my life. It was intensely inspiring."
She is not surprised at the recent influx of women
cantorial students.
"Women had been blocked from the cantorial
field for thousands of years, so once it was opened
to women, we eagerly entered the gates," Cantor
Corrsin says. "Women who love Judaism, love
Jewish music, love connecting with other Jews and
love touching the essence of God through song, are
flooding into the field."
For Rabbi Jerris, the road to the rabbinate was a
long one. "In some way, I worked my whole adult
life toward this," says the rabbi. "In 1970, just
before graduation from college, I naively wrote a let-
ter to HUC-JIR, inquiring about being a rabbi. I
was astounded to get a letter back telling me there
were no women rabbis in the Reform movement."
In childhood, she was a member of the Windsor
Reform congregation of Rabbi Sherwin Wine,
founder of the Humanistic Judaism movement. As a
young married woman, she moved to Detroit and
became part of his Birmingham Temple.
After spending 17 years as a non-rabbinic religious
leader, Rabbi Jerris was ordained as a Humanistic
rabbi in 2001, alongside her future son-in-law, Rabbi
Adam Chalom of Birmingham Temple.
"My rabbinate is about reaching out to marginal
Jews and helping them connect with Jewish life,"
says Rabbi Jerris, who spends much of her time
working with interfaith couples. "I want to let them
know there is a place to raise their children in a
Jewish environment."
In 1990, she married former advertising and pro-
duction manager Stephen Stawicki. As co-founders
of the Wedding Connection, "we're quite a unique
team," she says. "He does the wedding planning and
I perform the ceremonies."
A_ Role Model
"Parents were excited when they heard I would be
joining Hillel," says Detroit-born Rabbi Faudem, her-
self a former Hillel student. "They had expectations of
what that would bring to their kids as a role model."
She believes girl students get something special
from her being a rabbi. "I know they look at
Judaism more seriously because of me," says Rabbi
Faudem, who is married to Jeffrey Ershler. Their
children are Tal Erschler, 2, and Ari Erschler, 1.
"It's important for girls to have a role model who is a
rabbi," says Rabbi Bolton, who, in addition to her
chaplaincy and community-education work, has
accepted a position as scholar:in-residence at the Jewish
Academy of Metropolitan Detroit. She looks forward
Where Do Our Clergy
Come From
Schools across the United States ordaining rabbis and investing cantors
Rabbinical Schools:
CONSERVATIVE
• Ziegler School of Rabbinic
Studies at University of
Judaism in Los Angeles
"Originally an affiliate of the
JTS, the Ziegler School has
been involved in training rab-
bis for over 30 years," says
Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, assistant
dean of the school. "However,
the school's independent full
ordination program began in
1997." As of May, the school
had ordained four classes, with
a total of 38 students, includ-
ing 14 women.
"In the Conservative move-
ment, the numbers of female
rabbis has been on a steady
increase since the mid-'80s when
women were first admitted into
the rabbinical schools and into
the Rabbinical Assembly," Rabbi
Peretz says. "As more women
build successful careers in the
rabbinate, more worrien are
attracted to the rabbinate, as
they see it is feasible and possible
to be a woman and a rabbi."
• Rabbinical School of the
Jewish Theological Seminary of
America in New York City. The
school ordained its first woman
rabbi in 1985.
RENEWAL
• ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish
Renewal-Rabbinic Program.
The program, open to both
men and women, ordains rabbis
through a guidance and mentor-
ship program. The school began
registration for its new Rabbinic
Pastor Program this spring.
• International Institute for
Humanistic Judaism rabbinic
program in Farmington Hills.
The program has been ordain-
ing rabbis since 1999. The four
rabbis who have been ordained
through the movement include
two men and two women.
Cantorial Programs:
REFORM
• Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion.
Rabbis are ordained at their
New York, Cincinnati, Los
Angeles and Israeli campuses.
Since the 1972 ordination of
Rabbi Sally Priesand, the
school's first woman rabbi,
HUC-JIR has ordained 392
women in their American pro-
grams and 26 in their Israeli
program.
While the 2002 class includes
19 women and 12 men, the typ-
ical year's ratio is 50-50 in
American programs, with more
men than women in the Israel-
based program.
"The Reform movement and
HUC-JIR were the first Jewish
denomination to affirm women's
rights to be rabbis and philo-
sophically support an egalitarian
view on Jewish spiritual and
professional leadership," says
Jean Bloch Rosensaft, New
York-based HUC national direc-
tor for public affairs.
"Women are entering into
Jewish professional leader-ship in
ways comparable to other pro-
fessions — law, medicine, busi-
ness — where the doors have
opened. This is mirrored in the
large numbers of women faculty
(10) hired within the past five
years at HUC-JIR, two of
whom were ordained as rabbis
at HUC-JIR."
RECONSTRUCTIONIST
• Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College in Wyncote, Penn.
Although the school was found-
ed as an egalitarian institution
in 1968, the first woman did
not enter until the second ordi-
nation class and was ordained in
1974. Since then, 102 of the
235 rabbis ordained have been
women, with six women among
the class of 11 rabbis this
Month.
CONSERVATIVE
• H.L. Miller Cantorial School
of JTS in New York City. The
program ordains men and
women.
RECONSTRUCTIONIST
• Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College cantorial program in
Wyncote, Penn. The cantorial
program will invest its first can-
tor this month — a woman —
in a program that combines can-
torial training at the school,
with an M.A. degree in music
from Gratz College in
Philadelphia.
REFORM
• HUC-JIR School of Sacred
Music in New York City.
"More than two-thirds of our
cantorial school are women,"
says Cantor Israel Goldstein,
director of HUC-JIR School of
Sacred Music.
The program, which invested
its first woman cantor in 1975,
has an enrollment of 16 men and
24 women. Like the HUC-JIR
rabbinical class this year, the
2002 class of graduating cantors
also has more women than men,
with nine women and only one
man. While Cantor Goldstein
says this in an unusual phenome-
non, he maintains that for the
last six or seven years the pro-
gram has included more women
than men.
"It's hard to pinpoint why we
went from no women to predom-
inantly women," he says. "Maybe
congregations look to include
women as a different approach
from a musical standpoint."
RENEWAL
• ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish
Renewal-Cantorial Program.
The first class in the school's
cantorial program entered in
2001 and is open to men and
women.
3N
6/7
2002
17