At Hofstra: the Rabbi is a Woman

Jewish students at Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, have a new chaplain. She is Rabbi Bonnie Steinberg, a 27-year-old alumna of Brandeis University and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Steinberg is the second woman rabbi to become director of a B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at a university campus. The first woman to hold such a position serves at the University of Southern California. Only 22 women in the nation have been ordained as rabbis.

A native of Belmont, Mass, Steinberg attended Lake Forest College (III.) and the Longy School of Music (Cambridge, Mass.) before studying for her Bachelor of Arts degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. At HUC-JIR she received the Hebrew Prize in 1976. She studied for one year in the college’s Jerusalem rabbinic program.

Steinberg taught Hebrew at Temple Beth-El in Chappaqua, New York and at Temple Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan, and was a student rabbi at Congregation Beth Hillel in Jackson Heights, New York, and for the Jewish Community of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Hebrew literature from HUC-JIR and was ordained earlier this year. Steinberg succeeded Rabbi Frank Fischer, who left Hofstra last June to become coordinator of B’nai B’rith-Hillel organizations at the 14 university campuses in Florida.