Chana Timoner (née Carol Ann Surasky; August 24, 1951 – July 13, 1998) was the first female rabbi to hold an active duty assignment as a chaplain in the U.S. Army, which she began in 1993.
Her paternal grandparents, Anna and Morris (Max), were Russian Jews who had immigrated in 1910.
[5] Her mother had joined the Canadian Army to fight in World War II in 1940, a year before the United States entered the war, and in 1941 her mother transferred to the newly organized Women's Army Corps of the United States.
[4] Chana Timoner married at 18, and had two children by the time she graduated from college, yet was unhappy and restless as a homemaker and mother.
[4] She began rabbinical studies in 1984 after a friend remarked one day, "you know, in 7 years you could be a 40-year-old housewife or you could be a 40-year-old rabbi.