Julie Schonfeld was chosen as the first female rabbi to direct an American rabbinical association.
Schonfeld was named Wednesday as the new executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement’s rabbinic group. She will succeed Rabbi Joel Meyers, who will step down July 1.
Schonfeld is the first female rabbi to serve in the chief executive position of an American rabbinical association. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association had a woman who was not a rabbi in its top administrative position, while both the RRA and the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis have had women rabbis as president.
A graduate of Yale University and ordained in 1997 by the Jewish Theological Seminary, Schonfeld is currently the Rabbinical Assembly’s director of rabbinic development.
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