Female rabbi is breaking new ground
Jenny Amswych is serving Temple Beth Shalom alongside her husband — a first for the synagogue
Jenny Amswych isn’t your typical rabbi — and not only because she’s a woman. Amswych, a former professional dancer with an elementary education certification degree, said her past experience helped guide her to becoming Temple Beth Shalom’s first long-term contracted female rabbi and the only known female rabbi in Santa Fe. She said the opportunity not only allows
her to spearhead new projects that she feels could benefit her synagogue, but offers a chance to improve representation of female leadership within the Jewish community.
“When people think of a rabbi, the image that tends to come to mind is a masculine image,” said Amswych, 41. “To have a woman visibly in that role, there’s excitement.”
While Amswych said serving as a rabbi alongside her husband, Neil Amswych, the principal rabbi at the synagogue, has “in many ways been a dream come true,” she said it wasn’t always the end goal.
Prior to rabbinic work, she says with a laugh, that she “had like five different lives.” In her 20s, she was a professional dancer in New York City, performing with the company Momentum, while also pursuing a degree in dance at Columbia University.
The art form, Jenny Amswych said, “was going to be my whole life. … But life changes.”
Out of curiosity, she said she decided to enroll in an elementary education certification program through her university, which
led her to participate in studentteaching programs in the Bronx. There, she fell in love with teaching. Not only did she enjoy spending time with kids, but also was exposed to economic disparity and family traumas that opened her eyes to the possibility of a different future.
“I think that was subconscious background for my rabbinical work,” she said.
Fusing her Jewish upbringing with what she learned about income inequality and social justice via teaching propelled her into the world of rabbinics.
“The love of teaching,” she said, “is a a huge part of being a rabbi.”
In 2001, Amswych attended the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College near Philadelphia, where she met her future husband, who was studying abroad. When it came time for Neil Amswych to return to London, Jenny tagged along.
She graduated from Leo Baeck, getting engaged, then married, and stayed overseas for 11 years.
She officially became an ordained rabbi in July 2007 and went on to become an associate rabbi at Bournemouth Reform Synagogue on the south coast of England. She served in the role for about seven years alongside Neil Amswych, who was the principal rabbi there.
In 2014, the couple moved to Santa Fe with their two kids, now-6-year-old Asher and 8-year-old Zafra, so that Neil could pursue rabbinical work specifically tied to social justice at Temple Beth Shalom.
Although Jenny Amswych said she planned to be a fulltime mom for a while after the move, an opportunity to serve as the synagogue’s interim preschool director opened up and seemed like a no-brainer. She stayed in the role for about two years and has served the center in various ways since then.
Neil Amswych said Temple Beth Shalom’s cantoral soloist, Meredith Brown, and music director, Aaron Wolf, announced their retirement last year. When that happened, he said members of the synagogue assessed whether they wanted to fill the two positions with parallel roles, or do something slightly different. They chose the latter. In April, Neil Amswych announced that his wife would soon be a temporary associate rabbi.
Working together as a couple, Jenny Amswych said, “mirrors what we did in England,” and the partnership “is strengthening” to their marriage.
“It’s not the job where you do it and leave it in the office. It’s our life,” she said. “We do it because we love it and we love to do it together.”
“Judaism is based around love, and when the leaders show love together … the whole community exudes love,” agreed Neil Amswych, noting this is the first time Temple Beth Shalom has ever had a married rabbinical team.
Jenny Amswych said her job title of interim associate rabbi is different than an assistant rabbi, who works parallel with the principal rabbi. Instead, her title comes with its “own sphere of responsibilities.”
From working with the choir and other musicians as a cantor — she sings, plays bass, ukulele and guitar — to implementing alternative spiritual practices into services, “I think there’s a lot that can be done,” she said.
Since starting the job, she said, she’s been met with nothing but excitement.
“I think seeing a female rabbi is really important for a lot of people,” she said, noting this hasn’t always been the norm.
Although many women, such as the famed Maiden of Ludmir, taught Jewish law to men thousands of years ago as “independent rabbis,” females were not officially ordained until the 20th century.
The first was Regina Jonas in Germany in 1935. And while the Central Conference of American Rabbis issued a statement
favoring the ordination of women in 1922, the first American woman to hold the title was not until five decades later, in 1972.
Jenny Amswych said that following ordination of the first conservative female rabbi in 1985, it’s become more normalized across all Jewish denominations, with the exception of some Orthodox movements, to see women in the role.
Today, reports show that more than half of those enrolled in rabbinic school are female, and interest for studying Jewish law ranks higher among women than men.
Still, the fact that Amswych is the first female rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom to serve in “a very official capacity — that is a big deal,” she said.
While Jenny Amswych said she’d “be thrilled” if her parttime, one-year position morphs into something more permanent, she said “if the community wants to go in a different direction, then that’s what is best. … I’m here to support the community.”
In the meantime, however, her biggest goal is to remind people that God can be different things to different people.
“It’s exploring what God means to them,” she said. “There are a lot of doors into religion. … There’s no one right way to act Jewish, to be Jewish. You just have to be who you are, and then you walk in the door.”