A Reform-ordained woman rabbi, whose application to become the first Conservative woman rabbi was rejected last April at a convention of Conservative rabbis, has been appointed rabbi of a Conservative synagogue in Clifton Park, NY, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today.
A source at the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the association of Conservative rabbis, said Rabbi Beverly Magidson was named solo rabbi of Beth Shalom of Clifton Park, effective August I, her first pulpit. She is leaving her current post as associate director of the Hillel Foundation at Washington University in St. Louis to take the Clifton pulpit.
The term “solo rabbi” is used to refer to a congregation too small to need or to be able to afford more than one rabbi. The Clifton Park congregation is made up of slightly more than 100 families, the RA source said.
Magidson’s application to become a member of the RA was rejected by narrow margins in two roll-call votes at the RA 83rd annual convention in Houston last April 12. She was ordained in 1979 by the New York school of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Beth Shalom is an affiliate of the United Synagogue of America, the central agency for American Conservative synagogues.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
