Leaders of the Jewish Reform movement this week installed their first openly LGBT national president, a move made during a conference in Philadelphia.
On Monday, Rabbi Denise Eger became the 60th president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She was installed at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel during CCAR’s annual conference, after having been named president-elect in 2013.
CCAR is the oldest and largest rabbinical organization in the nation, with about 2,000 members. It represents the largest Jewish movement in the nation, which has about 1.5 million followers.
The Tennessee native was ordained in 1988 and shortly after became the first full-time rabbi at a Los Angeles synagogue, the first LGBT synagogue formally recognized by Reform Judaism. She later helped found and now leads a Reform congregation in West Hollywood.
Eger was among the Reform leaders who drafted the language for the movement’s ceremony for same-sex marriage and, in 2008, officiated the first legal wedding for a lesbian couple in California in 2008. She has served in a number of leadership positions at regional and national rabbinical and LGBT associations and has worked extensively on both LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS issues.
The Reform movement was among the earliest of the Jewish movements to advance LGBT equality, advocating for nondiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians nearly 40 years ago and civil marriage for same-sex couples two decades ago. Reform Judaism adopted a resolution 25 years ago to allow for gay and lesbian rabbis and, just this year, passed a measure calling for the ordination of transgender rabbis and nondiscrimination policies based on gender identity and expression.