Denise Eger

At 64 years old, Denise Eger physical status not available right now. We will update Denise Eger's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Prior to ordination, Eger served as a rabbinic internship for the Chaverim group in Westwood, for the 1983–84 term. She then became an intern in 1985-86 under Rabbi Solomon F. Kleinman at Temple Ahavat Shalom Northridge in Southern California. Rabbi Eger was ordained in 1988 at the New York campus of Hebrew Union College, following which she served as the first full-time rabbi of Beth Chayim Chadashim in Los Angeles, the world's first gay and lesbian synagogue recognized by Reform Judaism. In 1992, she and 25 other people founded Congregation Kol Ami, a synagogue intended to serve both gay and non-gay Jews in West Hollywood, California. Kol Ami has flourished into a 350-member congregation. Significant accomplishments include successfully fundraising to purchase land and construct an award-winning building, located on LaBrea avenue in West Hollywood, which was completed in 2001, and building an endowment that contributes 15 percent of the synagogue's annual operating budge

She previously served as the chair of the Search Alliance Institutional Review Board and Treasurer of the Women's Rabbinic Network, and is a past president of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis. She chaired the Gay and Lesbian Rabbinic Network of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and is past chair of the Task Force on Gays and Lesbians in the Rabbinate. She is a founding member of the Religion and Faith Council of the Human Rights Campaign and a founding executive committee member of California Faith for Equality. She is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Rabbi Eger was instrumental in helping pass the March 2000 CCAR resolution in support of officiation and gay and lesbian weddings. She is co-author of the official Reform movement gay and lesbian wedding liturgy. She officiated at the wedding of activists Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, on June 16, 2008.

In 2009, she became the first female and the first openly gay President of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. She was also the founding President of the Lesbian, Gay, & Bisexual Interfaith Clergy Association. In the summer of 2010 she was named one of the fifty most influential women rabbis.

In March 2015, she became president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in North America; she is the first openly gay person to hold that position. As head of the 2300 member international organization of Reform Rabbis, her achievements include revitalizing the ethics code by instituting mandatory continuing education; increasing CCAR's visibility by transforming the process for adoption of resolutions on public policy issues, and effective social media and press strategies; developing international relationships among Reform Rabbis serving outside North America; and strengthened governance by instituting term limits for committee chairs and members. Through her initiative, the CCAR created mandatory continuing education requirements for its members.

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