Joan Friedman

rdf:langString Joan Friedman

rdf:langString Joan Friedman became the first woman to serve as a rabbi in Canada in 1980, when she was appointed as an Assistant Rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Her appointment was followed shortly after by that of Elyse Goldstein as Assistant Rabbi from 1983-1986; Goldstein has been noted as the first female rabbi in Canada, but that is incorrect. Friedman was ordained in 1980 (before she began as an Assistant Rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple) by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Later she was named solo rabbi at B’nai Israel in Laconia, New Hampshire. She also worked as the Jewish chaplain at Colgate University for six years, as a congregational rabbi in Bloomington, Indiana for five years, and on the faculties of Colgate and American Universities. As of 2003, she was the associate chaplain for Jewish and interfaith life and coordinator of the Program in Ethical Reflection at Carleton College. As of 2016, she was Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies and Chair of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the College of Wooster. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate, and earned master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Jewish history from Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in 2002, and her dissertation was entitled "Solomon B. Freehof, the ‘Reform Responsa,’ and the Shaping of American Reform Judaism."