Susan Silverman at First Congregational Church of Columbus

Susan Silverman (born May 10, 1963) is an American

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

and the sister of comedians

Laura Silverman Laura Jane Silverman (born June 10, 1966) is an American actress and the older sister of actress and comedian Sarah Silverman. She acted in '' Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic'' and ''The Sarah Silverman Program'' portraying a fictionalized versi ...

and

Sarah Silverman Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American comedian, actress, and writer. Silverman was a writer and performer on ''Saturday Night Live'', and she starred in and produced ''The Sarah Silverman Program'', which ran from 2007 to ...

. In 1997, she and her husband,

Yosef Abramowitz Yosef Abramowitz is an Israeli-American environmentalist, president and CEO of Energiya Global Capital as well as co-founder of the Arava Power Company. Biography Abramowitz was born in 1964 in the United States, to a Jewish family. He lived i ...

, co-authored the book ''Jewish Family and Life: Traditions, Holidays, and Values for Today’s Parents and Children.'' She worked as a congregational rabbi in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, and as a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

educator in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, and moved to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in 2006.

Biography

Susan and her daughter Hallel Abramowitz are members of

Women of the Wall Women of the Wall (Hebrew language, Hebrew: נשות הכותל, ''Neshot HaKotel'') is a multi-denominational Jews, Jewish feminist organization based in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall, also calle ...

, and in 2012, they were arrested for wearing prayer shawls at the

Western Wall The Western Wall ( he, הַכּוֹתֶל הַמַּעֲרָבִי, HaKotel HaMa'aravi, the western wall, often shortened to the Kotel or Kosel), known in the West as the Wailing Wall, and in Islam as the Buraq Wall (Arabic: حَائِط � ...

. News of this went viral after Sarah Silverman

tweeted Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

her support. In 2013, Susan was named one of ''

The Jewish Daily Forward ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, '' ...

s "Forward 50", and the Jewish

erotica Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use a ...

website Jewrotica.org named her one of the world's ten sexiest rabbis. In 2015 Susan was in attendance when, for the first time, some of the

read from a full-size Torah scroll during a monthly prayer service at the

. Torah scrolls at the Western Wall are usually stored in the men's section, which women are forbidden from entering. On April 20, a group of male Jewish sympathizers handed a full-size Torah scroll over to Women of the Wall leaders. Some Haredi Orthodox men who had been praying at the Wall attacked the male sympathizers and tried to take the Torah scroll away from the women, and reportedly the men were removed by the police. The women were able to complete the prayer service. Susan claimed she chased away a man attempting to seize the Torah by threatening to touch him, saying, "I ran towards him with my hands in the air and shouted: 'I'm a woman! I'm a woman!' and he ran away because he didn't want me to touch him." Susan lives in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

and has five children; two were adopted from

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. In the wake of the

Amy Coney Barrett Amy Vivian Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972) is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth woman to serve on the court, she was nominated by President Donald Trump and has served since October 27, 2020. S ...

Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Silverman wrote an article discussing the use of Barrett's adopted children by both her detractors and defenders in terms of Silverman's own experience as an adoptive mother. She has written articles for MyJewishLearning.com and written the book, ''Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World'', which was published by Da Capo Press in March 2016. She also wrote the piece "Personal Reflection: Becoming a Woman of the Wall", which appears in the book ''The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate'', published in 2016. In 2017, she founded "Second Nurture", an organization dedicated to supporting the path from

foster care Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family mem ...

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Silverman, Susan Place of birth missing (living people) 1963 births Living people American emigrants to Israel American Reform rabbis People from Bedford, New Hampshire Reform women rabbis 21st-century American Jews Israeli Reform rabbis