Alysa Stanton

Alysa Stanton (born August 2, 1963, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.) is an American rabbi who on June 6, 2009, became the first female African American to be so ordained. Though the Reform and Conservative movements in Judaism had begun ordaining women rabbis in the 1970s and ’80s, Stanton’s ordination drew national attention to the growing number of African Americans converting to Judaism. Stanton was raised as a Pentecostal Christian. She first became interested in Judaism as...