Holy Sparks Exhibition Opens At UCLA

Organized by HUC-JIR’s Heller Museum in New York and The Braid in Los Angeles, this show spotlights the achievements of 24 female rabbis who were “firsts” in their time as depicted by 24 leading contemporary Jewish women artists.

“We are especially appreciative that our exhibition has a prominent presence on the UCLA campus right now,” says Jean Bloch Rosensaft, Heller Museum Director. “During this time of heightened anxiety and rising antisemitism, its empowering stories of courage and resilience will strengthen students, faculty, and the larger community and encourage the next generation to become Jewish leaders who will build the Jewish future.”

Holy Sparks captures the collective impact of female rabbis across the denominations and around the globe who have redefined Jewish leadership and transformed Jewish tradition, worship, spirituality, scholarship, education, social justice, and pastoral care.

The evocative art telling their stories demonstrates how contemporary women artists are advancing Jewish culture through the visual expression of Jewish history, values, and identity. The portraits range from representational to conceptual and include photography, textile, painting, mixed media, collage, drawing, and recycled materials.

Holy Sparks features the sequence of milestones that have opened the way for new new cohorts of leaders for the Jewish people:

1935: the first woman rabbi in modern times — RABBI REGINA JONAS — ordained in Berlin and murdered at Auschwitz in 1944

1972: the first woman rabbi in North America, ordained by HUC-JIR — RABBI SALLY PRIESAND, photographed on her pulpit surrounded by rainbows by Joan Roth

1974: the first woman rabbi ordained by the Reconstructionist movement, RABBI SANDY EISENBERG SASSO, whose ethos is captured by Debra Band’s papercut depicting the Torah as a clay jar emitting jewels

1975: the first woman rabbi to lead a large metropolitan synagogue — RABBI LAURA GELLER, whose leadership and inspirational friendship is conveyed in Ruth Weisberg‘s tender portrait

1975: the first woman rabbi ordained and serving in England — RABBI JACKIE TABICK, whose parable about inadvertent good deeds as the hands of God is evoked in Sandy Bleifer’s three-dimensional work

1981: the first woman rabbi to serve in Israel– RABBI KINNERET SHIRYON, whose career traversing the fault lines of serving as a community rabbi in Israel is depicted in a dissonant collage by Heddy Breuer Abramowitz

1982: the first woman rabbi to start her own congregation in America — RABBI AMY PERLIN, whose community building is expressed in DEBORAH UGORETZ’s paper cut portraying her with Torah aloft amidst the values-driven blossoming congregation she founded

1985: the first woman rabbi ordained by Conservative movement — RABBI AMY EILBERG, surrounded by images of her social justice and human rights work by Pat Berger

1986: the first active duty woman chaplain in the US military — RABBI JULIE SCHWARTZ, whose military chaplaincy is captured by Emily Bowen Cohen’s comics-informed panel

1988: the first openly LGBTQ+ woman rabbi — RABBI DENISE EGER, whose compassion for HIV/AIDS patients in the 1980s is evoked by Dorit Jordan Dotan‘s angelic imagery

1989: the founder of the groundbreaking Nashuva community — RABBI NAOMI LEVY, whose gathering of souls is conveyed by Judy Sirota Rosenthal’s mixed media and music installation

1990: the first woman rabbi ordained and serving in France — RABBI PAULINE BEBE, whose congregation’s values are depicted by Tamar Hirschl‘s amalgamation of Parisian and Jewish imagery

1992: the first woman rabbi ordained in Israel — RABBI NAAMAH KELMAN, whose struggles for pluralism and women’s empowerment in Israel are expressed by Ellen Alt’s calligraphic work

1993: the first woman rabbi seminary provost and Reform ordination officiant — RABBI ANDREA WEISS, whose scholarship and biblical mantra of “words flowing as dew” is conveyed by Debbie Teicholz Guedalia‘s metaphorical photo collage

1995: the first Syrian-Jewish woman rabbi — RABBI DIANE COHLER-ESSES, whose transcending of boundaries as a Jew of color is depicted by Siona Benjamin‘s soaring blue figure reflecting the infinite sky and sea

1998: the next generation innovator of “The Kitchen” — RABBI NOA KUSHNER, whose holding of names of those loved and lost in her “Kitchen” community is expressed by Harriete Estel Berman‘s Hanukkah menorah of recycled materials

1998: the first woman Chief Executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis — RABBI HARA PERSON, whose journey was built on words as the CCAR Press publisher, is depicted in Elizabeth Langer‘s scripture-laden patchwork collage

2001: the first Korean-American woman ordained a rabbi — RABBI ANGELA WARNICK BUCHDAHL, whose Korean and Jewish heritage-infused prayer and song are evoked by Laurie Gross

2001: the founder of the nondenominational IKAR community — RABBI SHARON BROUS, whose joyous and impassioned persona is captured in Penny Wolin’s multi-image photographic portrait

2002: the first woman rabbi Masorti youth leader in Israel — RABBI CLAUDIA KREIMAN, whose crisis of faith towards humanity after her mother’s murder in the AMIA terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires is expressed in Marisa Takal‘s psychic landscape

2003: the head of the Masorti movement in Germany — RABBI GESA EDERBERG, whose revitalization of Judaism in Berlin is portrayed by Yona Verwer‘s abstracted imagery evoking German Jewry’s past splendor

2007: the first woman rabbi in Poland and Czech Republic — RABBI TANYA SEGAL, whose Jewish renaissance in Poland is captured by Linda Soberman’s portrait embedded in Krakow’s past

2009: the first Orthodox ordained rabba– RABBA SARA HURWITZ, whose community-driven leadership is conveyed by Kathryn Jacobi’s painting of her world shaped by her family and her students

2012: the founding feminist theologian/ethicist — RABBI RACHEL ADLER, whose landmark feminist essay is recorded as a page of Talmud by Marilee Tolwin’s Tolwin’s drawing

2013: the first woman on the Bible faculty at HUC-JIR and editor of the landmark The Torah: A Women’s Commentary — RABBI TAMARA COHN ESKENAZI, whose faith after the Holocaust is conveyed by Carol Hamoy’s commandment-inscribed gloves

As “holy sparks,” women in the rabbinate are kindling the Jewish engagement, education, and identity of communities far and wide, today and for the generations to come.

Download the free Holy Sparks audio guide on the Heller Museum app at BloombergConnects.org