[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 8358]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HONORING RABBI JUDITH S. LEWIS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 2011

  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, Rabbi Judith S. Lewis became the rabbi of 
Riverdale Temple in the summer of 2006, after having served for 14 
years as the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of the City of New York. She 
began her tenure at Temple Israel as the Director of Education for six 
years.
  In 2005 she earned an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the 
Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion, where she was 
ordained in 1980. She was part of the first generation of women rabbis, 
ordained at a time when there were fewer than a dozen women in the 
Reform rabbinate. Her undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, from 
Oberlin College in Ohio.
  Rabbi Lewis was born and raised in Rochester, New York where her 
extended family participated in congregations of every denomination. A 
favored childhood recollection is the successive observance of Jewish 
holidays at each congregation. Once services ended at her family's 
Reform synagogue, they would often go to join her grandparents in their 
Conservative congregation, and finally join aunts and uncles at the 
Orthodox synagogue to finish the celebration of the holiday.
  Rabbi Lewis says she has enjoyed directing the religious school this 
year calling the students are among the most delightful young people 
she has ever met. Jewish education has been a life-long passion for her 
and she has the rare ability to inculcate her students with that 
passion and enthusiasm.
  Rabbi Lewis is being honored at the Riverdale Temple's Annual Student 
Scholarship breakfast. I join with the Temple in honoring this 
wonderful teacher as she completes her 30th year in the rabbinate, and 
thank her for her many contributions to the Temple, its students, and 
the community.

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