About


Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz (1978) was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She spent the majority of her childhood in southern Spain. After completing her high school education, she moved back to the Netherlands where she obtained her M.Sc. (Master of Science) in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of non-Western Societies from the University of Amsterdam. Furthering her Jewish education, she studied at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel and was an E. Levinas Fellow at Paideia, the European Institute of Jewish Studies in Stockholm, Sweden.
Esther completed the first two years of her rabbinical training at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, a seminary affiliated with the Conservative/Masorti movement of Judaism and interned as a Rabbinic Fellow at the American Jewish University. She completed the remaining three years of her rabbinical training at Leo Baeck College in London, UK and was ordained a rabbi with this seminary in 2013.
Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz has served as the Associate Rabbi at Sinai Synagogue in Leeds and is very excited to be the new Rabbi for Congregation Agudas Achim, Iowa City, Iowa. 
In her free time, she enjoys composing liturgical music, songwriting, writing, travelling, photography and cooking. She takes an interest in issues of multiculturalism and social justice and firmly believes in representing a socially-relevant and spiritually-compelling Judaism for today’s world.
You can find her on Twitter and on Facebook.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bit by Bit

Parashat Vayeitzeh, Human Rights Shabbat 2016 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Bit by Bit When Jacob left Beer-Sheva and journeyed towards Charan, he was truly and utterly free. Not even gravity could constrain him, as he laid his head to rest on a pillow of stone and dreamt of the angels ascending and descending the ‘sulam’, the ladder to the heavens. Jacob was on an intrepid adventure, a quest for liberation. He needed to get away from the limitations of his own upbringing and the mistakes that bound him to his past. In that freedom, he found vision in the night, courage in his fear. Yet, only a chapter later, he found himself in subjugation to his uncle Laban’s deception. Wanting to marry his cousin Rachel, the beautiful younger daughter, Laban contracted him to work for seven years before allowing him to marry her. The Torah tells us that Jacob agrees with the terms and conditions of this arrangement and narrates: ‘ Vayavod Ya’akov b’Rachel sheva shanim va’yihyu be’einav
Read more

Vrouwen en het Joodse gebed

Image
Tefillin leggen, 2007 - foto genomen voor Reliflex Dit artikel is in 2007 verschenen in Reliflex , de voorganger van Nieuw W!J. Vrouwen en het Joodse gebed Het religieuze jodendom steunt op twee gedachten. Enerzijds is iedere mens – man en vrouw – geschapen naar Gods beeld en dus gelijkwaardig. Anderzijds steunt het jodendom op verplichting. Deze twee concepten zijn van belang om de joodse eredienst te begrijpen. Elke jood – man of vrouw – kent de verplichting tot gebed. Maar deze verplichting kent in het traditionele jodendom een zwaardere rol toe aan mannen dan aan vrouwen. Mannen moeten drie maal daags bidden en bij het ochtendgebed een gebedsmantel met schouwdraden (talliet) dragen en gebedsriemen (tefilien) aanleggen. Vrouwen zijn van deze geboden vrijgesteld. De traditionele uitleg is dat vrouwen zorg voor huishouden en kinderen hebben en niet belast moeten worden met tijdsgebonden geboden die secuur uitgevoerd moeten worden. Een meer antropologische uitleg zou zijn dat het in e
Read more

Love is Stronger than Death

Sermon Chayyei Sarah 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Love is Stronger than Death One of the most beautiful verses from Shir haShirim (Song of Songs) is ‘ ki azah chamavet ahavah ’ - ‘for love is stronger than death’ (8:6). I had been asked to attend a funeral of a local Lutheran Iowa woman as a proxy for her beloved grandson who is a dear friend of mine. The pastor, who had been a personal friend of the deceased, delivered a beautiful and heartfelt homily on her life, integrity and love of God. Being invited to witness this moment of transcendence and intimacy and supporting a mourning family was a privilege. As I sat in the pews something else struck me. This salt-of-the-earth Midwestern pastor, himself in his mid-eighties, spoke with great love and tenderness. For a man of his generation, speaking about tenderness, love and intimacy may not have been the cultural trope of his upbringing and I realized what a great gift our faith traditions give us:
Read more