On the 17th (local time), Wall Street Journal(WSJ) reported that Korean-American woman Angela Warnick Buchdahl(41·photo) was appointed as a senior rabbi of New York’s biggest Jewish synagogue. WSJ reported about Angela, who succeed rabbi Peter Rubinstein(71) and start her term from July 1st, that ‘her appointment comes at a critical moment for American Judaism.’
Buchdahl has received questions of ‘whether she is actually a Jew’ because her mother is a Korean Buddhist and her father is an American Jew. She decided to become a rabbi during a trip to Israel at 16 and studied Religious Studies in Yale. She later assumed a dual role as a rabbi and a cantor (Judaism’s choir instructor). There are only a dozen people in the U.S. and Canada ordained as both a rabbi and a cantor.
Rabbi Elka Abrahamson, President of the Wexner Foundation, which develops Jewish leaders in North America and Israel, said “She is a pioneer who represents a new generation of women.”