Offner Continues Her Trailblazing Ways

June 13, 2008

Author: Jeff Strickler

Source: The Star Tribune

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/faith/19913134.html?location_refer=Faith%20+%20Values:highlightModules:1

When Rabbi Stacy Offner leaves Shir Tikvah Congregation in Minneapolis in two weeks to become vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, she will become the highest-ranking female Jewish clergy in North America.

"Hmmm," she said when a visitor mentioned this fact. "I guess you're right, but I've never thought of it in those terms."

Offner, 52, has spent her career -- if not her entire life -- not thinking of things the way other people do. It goes back to when she decided as a youngster that she was going to be a rabbi. The fact that there were no female rabbis at the time never entered into her planning.