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Felicia L. Sol

Senior Rabbi

Rabbi Felicia Sol

fsol@bj.org

ext. 233

Biography

Rabbi Sol has served as a rabbi at BJ since 2001, becoming the first woman to serve as a rabbi in the congregation’s almost 200-year history. In June 2021, she was appointed as a senior rabbi of the congregation, also a first in the congregation’s history.

Rabbi Sol joined BJ as Family and Youth Director while in rabbinical school, and after ordination in 1999 served as a BJ Rabbinic Fellow for two years. During this time, she created Pnei Shabbat, BJ’s family prayer book, and edited Zimrat Yah: Prayers and Songs for Shabbat and Festivals.

After two years under the mentorship of Rabbis J. Rolando Matalon and Marcelo Bronstein, Rabbi Sol joined her teachers in their rabbinic partnership.

During her 25 year tenure as a rabbi at BJ, Rabbi Sol has overseen the programmatic vision for the community for members of every age: transforming the teen program; creating the beloved Women’s retreat; leading the community’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts; and envisioning the communal Back Home Shabbaton. Mentoring over 20 BJ Rabbinic fellows in and beyond their time at BJ is one of the great privileges of her rabbinate.

Her service to the Jewish community goes beyond BJ: serving on the board of Bend the Arc for 15 years, and as a member of the rabbinic council of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. She is a graduate of the Clergy Leadership of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality, and is currently in the 8th cohort of the Rabbinic Leadership Initiative of the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Rabbi Sol was featured in the documentary All of the Above: Single, Clergy, Mother and wrote an essay in the book Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay. She is also featured in Identity/Crisis, a podcast of the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Rabbi Sol earned a BA in Developmental Psychology and Education from Tufts University, a Masters in Jewish Education from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, her Masters of Hebrew Letters (1996) and rabbinic ordination (1999) also from HUC-JIR. She received her Doctor in Divinity from HUC-JIR for 25 years in the rabbinate.

Raised in Connecticut, Rabbi Sol has a son and a daughter and lives on the Upper West Side.

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Rabbi Felicia Sol