- Lynn Gottlieb
Lynn Gottlieb entered pulpit life at the age of 23 in 1973, as rabbi to Temple Beth Or of the Deaf in New York City. In 1981, she became the first woman ordained in the
Jewish Renewal movement. ["Pioneering rabbi finds deep satisfaction in storytelling, living life...", "Albuquerque Journal ",January 2 ,2000 . "Gottlieb, a nationally known storyteller, was the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement and the third generation in Her family to found a synagogue.] She has been recognized as one of America's 50 Top Rabbis. [ [http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2007/04/more_than_50_top_rabbis.html Letty Cottin Pogrebin: 50 Top Rabbis] , "The Washington Post " / "Newsweek " On Faith: A Conversation on Religion with Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn,April 29 ,2007 . AccessedJune 19 ,2007 .]Gottlieb's focus on spiritual meaning has helped shape the Jewish Renewal movement. In 1974, she founded "Bat Kol", a Jewish feminist theatre troupe that has performed throughout North America and Europe. In 1983, she moved to
Albuquerque, New Mexico , where she co-founded [http://www.nahalatshalom.org/ Congregation Nahalat Shalom] . Gottlieb moved to Southern California to head [http://www.interfaithinventions.org/ Interfaith Inventions] , a new organization which works ecumenically to promote interfaith youth camp programs nationwide, building on her work as co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk. She is a founder of the [http://shomershalom.org/ Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence] . She has one child; a son who now lives in LA.Gottlieb led a Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation to Iran in 2008, thus becoming the first U.S. Rabbi and the first female Rabbi to visit Iran in a public delegation since the 1979 Iranian revolution. [ [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1208870516382 / U.S. Rabbi Leads Delegation to Iran] , "
The Jerusalem Post ",April 28 ,2008 . AccessedMay 6 ,2008 .]On September 25, 2008 she participated in an interfaith gathering in New York at which President Ahmaninajed of Iran spoke. Her presence at the event was widely criticized as bolstering President Ahmaninajed's position after a UN speech in which he expressed relatively crude anti-Jewish stereotypes and reiterated his oft-repeated wish for Israel's swift demise. In response to President Ahmaninajed's remarks, Rabbi Goittleib told Reuters "Our world views are rather different. But unless we ... dialogue face to face, how will we create any kind of understanding?" adding that she chose to attend because "peace is better than war."
"We are deeply concerned when your statements about the Holocaust minimize or diminish its impact on our world today, and on Jewish people today," she told Ahmadinejad. "We ask you to change the way you speak about the Holocaust."
She asked him to avoid rhetoric that "is heard as a threat to destroy the state of Israel," to allow religious freedom in Iran and to be transparent about Iran's nuclear program.
References
References
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Gottlieb.html Jewish Virtual Library Biography]
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