This volume analyzes historical and recent developments in female religious leadership and the larger issues shaping the scholarly debate at the intersection of gender and religious studies. Jewish activism and scholarship have been crucial in linking theology and gender issues since the early twentieth century. Academic and vocational leadership and training have had significant, concrete impact on religious communal practices and formation across the US and Europe. At the same time, these models provide important avenues of constructive dialogue and comparative ecumenical and interfaith enterprises. This volume investigates those possibilities towards constructive, activist, holistic female ministerial leadership for religious faith communities.

Hartmut Bomhoff is senior research fellow at the Abraham Geiger College, University of Potsdam.

Denise L. Egeris an international Jewish leader and social justice activist and founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami (West Hollywood, CA).

Kathy Ehrensperger is research professor of New Testament in Jewish perspective at the
Abraham Geiger Kolleg, University of Potsdam.

Walter Homolka is professor of Jewish theology at the University of Potsdam and coeditor of theEncyclopedia of Jewish-Christian Relations.

Preface Honoring the Legacy of Rabbiner Regina Jonas: A Call to Let Religious Women Write Alternative Narratives of the Future,Denise L. Eger

Acknowledgments

Introduction Women as Religious Leaders,Hartmut Bomhoff, Denise L. Eger, Kathy Ehrensperger, Walter Homolka



I. New Roles for Jewish Women in Modernizing Germany and America



The Discourse of the Other: The Transformation of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Germany,Yael KupferbergPatterns of Reform: Tracking Womens Changing Roles in Synagogues and Communal Life within Nineteenth-Century American and German Judaism,Karla GoldmanWomen Students at the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums,Esther SeidelThe Woman in the House of God (1926) Revisited,Hartmut BomhoffPaving the Road to Women Rabbis, 18892015,Pamela Nadell

II. Three Pioneers of Female Leadership: Henrietta Szold, Margarete Susman, and Regina Jonas



Henrietta Szold: A Pretty Certain Miriam,Gail Twersky ReimerThe Religious as the Political in Margarete Susman,Elisa KlapheckRemembering Regina Jonas: On the Intersectionality of Womens, Jewish, German, and Holocaust History,Katharina von KellenbachMemory and Identity: Female Leadership and the Legacy of Regina Jonas,Stefanie Sinclair

III. Personal Reflections



They Married What They Wanted to Be? Rebbetzins and their Unconventional Paths to Power,Shuly Rubin SchwartzLooking Back: Religion as Container for Memory and Tradition,Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

IV. Comparing Notes: Female Religious Leadership Today



Womens Leadership in the Roman Catholic Church: A Survey of Half a Centurys Development with Particular Reference to Germany,Marie-Theres WackerThe Impact of Women in Protestant Christian Ministry Today,Renate JostRereading Male Chauvinism: Muslim Womens Own Approach to Their Holy Text,Katajun AmirpurThe Ordination of Women and the Question of Religious Authority,Judith Frishman

About the Editors

About the Contributors