Women at Work
By Jill Cousins
Female rabbis have been embraced by the Reform Judaism movement since 1972, and women were able to become ordained cantors just three years later. Fast-forward 50 years, and the United States now has an estimated 1,000 female rabbis, and many congregations feature an all-female clergy. The Central Florida area, however, did not jump on that bandwagon…
Making History: Rachael Jackson
In July 2023, Rabbi Rachael Jackson became Central Florida’s first female rabbi when she was hired by Congregation of Reform Judaism to succeed Rabbi Steven Engel, who retired after 26 years. She also became part of our Jewish community’s first all-female clergy, along with Cantor Bryce Megdal, who arrived at CRJ three years earlier.
“I did my homework,” says Rabbi Jackson, 42, regarding her historic hiring. “CRJ had two long-standing male rabbis [Rabbi Engel and Rabbi Larry Halpern], and that goes back to 1970 when there were no female rabbis. No other congregations in the area had female clergy. I went, ‘OK, well, it’s 2023. Time to shake things up!’”
Growing up in rural Colorado in the 1980s and 1990s, Rachael’s upbringing was not typical for someone who would one day become a rabbi. She knew she was Jewish, and her family celebrated basic Jewish holidays like Hanukkah and Passover. But with both parents working long shifts as nurses, there was no time to do scheduled activities like attending Shabbat services, and the nearest synagogue was more than a half-hour drive away.
Coincidentally, Cantor Bryce and Rabbi Jackson met about 12 years ago when they were among a group of Americans studying in Israel. They became Central Florida’s first all-female clergy when Rabbi Jackson was hired in July.
Above: Rabbi Jackson, with husband Danyul and son Adrian, moved here from Hendersonville, North Carolina, where she was the city’s sole Jewish clergy for eight years.
Below: Rachael Jackson became a bat mitzvah at age 25 at Congregation Har Hashem in Boulder, Colorado
Rachael was also the only Jewish child in her elementary school and middle school, and in a high school of 1,500 students, she was one of only two Jews. Still, for some reason, Rachael recalls begging and pleading with her parents to take her to the only synagogue in the area – in Colorado Springs.
“When I was 11, I don’t know why, I just wanted to go,” she says. “So we went, and that experience was extremely transformational for me – and not in a good way.”
It was such a bad experience, in fact, Rachael would not step inside another synagogue until after she graduated from college.
The Colorado Springs congregants looked at Rachael and her blond, blue-eyed mother and were not just unwelcoming to these newcomers, they were downright cold.
Fortunately, that did not cause Rachael to turn her back on Judaism, but it did take some time before she would embrace her religion again. After putting herself through college in less than three years and graduating with a degree in chemistry at age 21, Rachael moved to Denver. Shortly after she started working, Rachael decided to join a local synagogue – which had an all-female clergy – and became enthusiastically involved, even becoming a bat mitzvah at age 25.
Then, after almost a decade working as an analytic chemist, Rachael concluded that her work – even though she loved her job – was not her calling. She wanted to do something that was “challenging, meaningful, and purposeful,” she says, in a more personal way. Shortly after that epiphany, at age 30, Rachael enrolled in rabbinical school and earned her Rabbinic Ordination from Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in 2015.
Just before her first year in rabbinical school, which was spent in Israel, Rachael became engaged to husband Danyul. They married in 2011 and welcomed son Adrian, now 9, three years later.
A Voice in the Desert: Bryce Megdal
Unlike Rabbi Jackson, Cantor Bryce was very involved in Jewish life from an early age. Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, she attended preschool and kindergarten at the local Jewish Community Center, spent many summers at J Camp, and attended Tucson Hebrew Academy from first through eighth grade. In third grade, Bryce started her singing career as a member of the newly-formed Tucson Jewish Youth Choir and became a bat mitzvah at the traditional age of 13.
Although she didn’t think about becoming a cantor until she was in college, Bryce knew early on that she loved the Hebrew language and singing Jewish and Hebrew music. While attending public high school, Bryce stayed involved at her synagogue tutoring b’nai mitzvah students, singing in the choir, and even occasionally substituting for the cantor. By age 18, she was a cantorial soloist.
“As a leader in
the Jewish community,
it is my responsibility to
always fight for gender
equality and empower the
younger generations
to do the same.”
“I’ve always been very comfortable with my Judaism,” says Cantor Bryce, 33, who married husband Marc Tanne in 2019. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a cantor, but I knew I loved to sing and loved Hebrew, and doing that at temple just made sense. I was also fortunate to grow up in an era when being a female was fine. I was always encouraged and given plenty of opportunities.”
When Bryce went to college, she was an art major. That changed when she talked to one of the school’s Judaic studies professors who had been Bryce’s fifth-grade teacher back in grade school. The professor asked Bryce about her major and – after hearing it was art – bopped Bryce on the head with a rolled-up piece of paper and proclaimed, “You should major in Judaic Studies, as well!”
Above: Bryce Megdal on her bat mitzvah day in Tucson, Arizona
Below: Cantor Bryce married Marc Tanne in September 2019
“I knew I loved Hebrew,” Bryce says, “but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with it.”
After graduating with degrees in both studio art and Judaic studies, Bryce contemplated whether to become a cantor or pursue another passion, photography. A year later, she moved to California and enrolled at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California where she would receive a master’s degree in Jewish studies, before transferring to the cantorial program. Bryce was ordained as a cantor in 2019, and one year later – in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic – she was hired by CRJ sight unseen.
“It was a leap of faith for me and for CRJ,” says Cantor Bryce, who was given a virtual tour of CRJ by Rabbi Engel via FaceTime.
After working with Rabbi Engel for three years, she has embraced the female dynamic with her new colleague, Rabbi Jackson.
“I was fortunate to grow up in a world where it was okay to sing on the bima as a female,” says Cantor Bryce. “Even so, the fact that many of my congregants have expressed how exciting it is to have two female clergy at CRJ is a powerful reminder of what women had to go through to get to this point. As a leader in the Jewish community, it is my responsibility to always fight for gender equality and empower the younger generations to do the same.”
This story was originally published in print in Winter 2023.