Newsweek Names Their Top 50 Rabbis in the USA

One of those lists that usually appears near the end of the year, Newsweek magazine is looking forward and naming the rabbis they think are the top 50 now and will continue to be for the rest of 2009. The whole list is here. Have a look and see if it matches your personal favourites. Of note to the ravaj: the top woman at number 18 (chai, noch) is Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, old friend to the ravaj and recently elevated to head of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). I wonder how she feels about this honour?

NB the ravaj was once the only girl on the West London Under-11 Chess team that won the league. She got a medal and was very proud.

Mazal Tov to R. Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus!

Photo: Hara Person
This week the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the umbrella organisation for Reform rabbis in N. America) meets in Jerusalem for its annual convention. There, Ellen (seen above earlier today at a service by the Western Wall) will be installed as the second female leader of the oldest rabbinical association in the world. Apart from the fact that she is a member of two families dedicated to their Judaism for several generations, or that her father-in-law A Stanley Dreyfus z"l was my beloved teacher, or even that she is a cousin of my godmother in England; I want to shout out that she is a mensch. I have not met so many in my professional experience, and so I am delighted that she will be our leader for the next couple of years.

The Chicago Jewish News has a nice piece about her here.