Dr. Rachel Adler is Professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles.  She was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into the interpretation of Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics.  She is the author of Engendering Judaism (1999) which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought.   Her articles include “Those Who Turn Away Their Faces: Tzara'at and Stigma” in Healing and the Jewish Imagination; “Innovation and Authority: A Feminist Reading of the ‘Women's Minyan’ Responsum” in Gender Issues in Jewish Law; and “To Live Outside the Law You Must Be Honest: A Question of Boundaries” in The Reconstructionist.  Professor Adler is currently writing about the lament tradition.

Areas of Expertise

• Jewish feminist theology and ethics
• Judaism and gender
• Feminist theology
• Modern Jewish thought
• Women, religion, and sexuality
• Theologies of pain, suffering, and loss

Education

• Ph.D., University of Southern California (1997)

Lecture Titles

• Texts of Horror: Scared Women and Scary Women in Biblical Texts
• Pour Out Your Heart Like Water: Lament as a Way of Talking to God
• Love, Loyalty and Loathing: Biblical Marriages Through the Lens of Gender
• Why I Hate Ecclesiastes (And Keep on Reading Him)
• On Those Who Hide Their Faces:  The Biblical “Leper” (Metzorah) and the Dementia Patient
• Reading Lamentations: What a Destroyed World has to Say to Us

Publications

• Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics, England: Jewish Publication Society, 1998.  Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought by Jewish Book Council (1999).
•  “A Yom Kippur ABC,” Kesher (1999). Available online: 
• “Roundtable: On a Feminist Life”  Chaverim (Hartman Institute Periodical) (2010)
• Eight articles on the parshiot of Leviticus for Voices of Reform Judaism, http://www.URJ.org (2009)
• Contemporary Reflections on: Parashat Bereshit, Parashat Mishpatim, and Parashat Vayyakhel  in The Women’s Bible Commentary, Tamara Eskenazi and Andrea Weiss, eds.  Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society (2008)
• “Those Who Turn Away Their Faces: Tzara’at and Stigma” Healing and the Jewish Imagination, William Cutter, ed.  Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights. (2007)
• “Judith Plaskow,” Jewish Women:  A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Paula E. Hyman and Dalia Ofer, eds. (2007)