Michal Mendelsohn

Michal Mendelsohn (born Michal Bernstein) became the first presiding female rabbi in a North American congregation when she was hired by Temple Beth El Shalom in San Jose, California, in 1976.[1][2]

She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1975, the second Reform Jewish woman to be ordained.[3] She then became the head of the University Programs department of the United Jewish Appeal.[4] She served as rabbi of Temple Beth El Shalom from 1976 until 1978, when she left to attend the University of Santa Clara law school.[1] In 1999 she became the rabbi for the Joliet Jewish Congregation, a non-denominational congregation in Illinois.[5][6] In 2000 she left that congregation and became one of the founders of Congregation Ohr Chadash (New Light), also in Illinois.[7] As of 2013 she is working on a memoir tentatively titled Rabbi, Your Cleavage is Showing.[2] The title comes from 1977, when San Jose Mayor Janet Gray Hayes presented Mendelsohn with a key to the city, and someone attending the ceremony criticized the “clinginess" of Mendelsohn's dress.[2]

She has also worked as an executive in a Fortune 500 company, as a university professor, as a manager for non-profit organizations, and as the executive director of an arts center.[6]