Hebrew Union College Graduates the First African-American Female Rabbi

Last weekend Alysa Stanton completed her studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and was ordained at the city’s Plum Street Temple. Stanton says she is the only African-American woman rabbi in the world.

Stanton is a native of Cleveland but spent her teenage years in Denver as a Pentecostal Christian. A graduate of Colorado State University, she converted to Judaism at the age of 24. Now 45 years old, divorced, with a 14-year-old adopted daughter, Stanton will begin her ministry at Bayt Shalom in Greenville, North Carolina.

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