Rachel Adler

Jewish theologian, rabbi (born 1943)

Rachel Adler (born Ruthelyn Rubin; July 2, 1943) is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus. Adler was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. Her approach to God is Levinasian and her approach to gender is constructivist.

Adler was born in Chicago on July 20, 1943, to Herman Rubin, an executive at a large insurance company, and Lorraine Rubin (née Helman), the chairwoman of a large guidance department at a suburban high school. In 1946, the Rubins had another daughter, Laurel. While Adler was raised Reform, she became Orthodox in her teens as a ba'al teshuva. On December 20, 1964, while still studying at Northwestern University, Adler married Moshe Adler, an Orthodox rabbi. Adler went on to graduate with her B. A. and M. A. degrees in English Literature from Northwestern University in 1965 and 1966. Adler's early publications "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman," in Davka and "Tum'ah and Toharah: Ends and Beginnings" in 1971 and 1972, respectively, gained her international attention as a feminist spokesperson and Orthodox feminist. Adler gave birth to a son, Amitai Bezalel, in 1973. During the 1970s, while active as an Orthodox Rebbetzin at the Los Angeles and Minnesota Hillel Houses, Adler completed all coursework for her doctorate in English. She went on to receive a Master of Social Work in 1980 and worked as a therapist for several years. In the 1980s, Adler's writings became increasingly critical of Niddah and classical rabbinics; she ultimately separated from the Orthodox movement and returned to Reform Judaism. In 2013, Adler became the first person to hold the Rabbi David Ellenson Chair in Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College. In 2020, Adler retired, though she has continued to teach virtually as a Professor Emerita at HUC JIR.

In 1971, while identifying as an Orthodox Jew (though she previously and later identified as Reform Jewish), she published an article entitled "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman," in Davka magazine; according to historian Paula Hyman, this article was a trailblazer in analyzing the status of Jewish women using feminism. In 1983, she published an essay in Moment entitled "I've Had Nothing Yet, So I Can't Take More," in which she criticized rabbinic tradition for making women "a focus of the sacred rather than active participants in its processes," and declared that being a Jewish woman "is very much like being Alice at the Hatter's tea party. We did not participate in making the rules, nor were we there at the beginning of the party." which Adler viewed as not according with feminist ideals of equality between the sexes. Adler is the author of many articles that have appeared in Blackwell's Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Beginning Anew: A Woman's Companion to the High Holy Days, Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, Lifecycles, The Jewish Condition, and On Being a Jewish Feminist.