Rachel Adler (born Ruthelyn Rubin; July 2, 1943[1]) is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus.
During the 1970s, while active as an Orthodox Rebbetzin at the Los Angeles and Minnesota Hillel Houses, Adler completed all coursework for her doctorate in English.
In the 1980s, Adler's writings became increasingly critical of Niddah and classical rabbinics; she ultimately separated from the Orthodox movement and returned to Reform Judaism.
[4] In 1986, Adler enrolled in the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion-University of Southern California doctoral program in Religion.
[citation needed] Adler completed her PhD degree in 1997 with her doctoral dissertation was titled "Justice and Peace Have Kissed: A Feminist Theology of Judaism.
[7][8] In 2013, Adler became the first person to hold the Rabbi David Ellenson Chair in Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College.
"[6] In 1983, she published an essay in Moment entitled "I've Had Nothing Yet, So I Can't Take More," in which she criticized rabbinic tradition for making women "a focus of the sacred rather than active participants in its processes," and declared that being a Jewish woman "is very much like being Alice at the Hatter's tea party.
[9] Among the book's contributions to Jewish thoughts was the creation of a new ritual, brit ahuvim, to replace the traditional erusin marriage ceremony,[16] which Adler viewed as not according with feminist ideals of equality between the sexes.