{"id":214571,"date":"2025-02-04T22:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T20:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/df.news\/?p=214571"},"modified":"2025-02-07T08:58:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T06:58:50","slug":"synagogue-sha-arei-orah-elects-woman-as-their-religious-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/2025\/02\/04\/synagogue-sha-arei-orah-elects-woman-as-their-religious-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Synagogue Sha\u2019arei Orah elects woman as their religious leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Congregation Sha\u2019arei Orah installed its first spiritual leader late last month, with Rabbanit Leah Sarna taking over as one of five women serving as solo spiritual leaders of Orthodox synagogues around the world, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishexponent.com\/philadelphia-shul-becomes-fifth-orthodox-synagogue-in-world-to-be-led-by-a-woman\/\">jewishexponent.com<\/a> reports<\/p>\n<p>Sarna previously served as director of religious engagement at Anshe Sholom B\u2019nai Israel Congregation in Chicago, where she was recognized by the Jewish United Fund as one of Chicago\u2019s 36-under-36 honorees.<\/p>\n<p>Synagogue President Susie Ratner said that, though it sends a positive message to Orthodox women, that wasn\u2019t why Sarna was chosen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer hiring is in some ways unremarkable because she is so talented and experienced and was the most qualified candidate,\u201d Ratner said.<\/p>\n<p>Sha\u2019arei Orah, which is less than a decade old, started with around 20 families and grew slowly until 2023, when the community decided that it wanted to find a spiritual leader. At that point, members looked at what kind of leader would be best for them and began the search process, said Roseanne Lesack, the vice president of the congregation and the chair of the spiritual leader search committee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur community was looking for an inspirational leader to teach Torah, support our members throughout the Jewish life cycle and serve as the halachic authority for our community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congregation Sha\u2019arei Orah installed its first spiritual leader late last month, with Rabbanit Leah Sarna taking over as one of five women serving as solo spiritual leaders of Orthodox synagogues around the world, jewishexponent.com reports Sarna previously served as director of religious engagement at Anshe Sholom B\u2019nai Israel Congregation in Chicago, where she was recognized [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":214407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"telegram_tosend":false,"telegram_tosend_message":"","telegram_tosend_target":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/df.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/L3.jpg?fit=994%2C707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214572,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214571\/revisions\/214572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}