Elisa Klapheck
Born in 1962 in Germany, Elisa Klapheck is a rabbi of the liberal synagogue community “Egalitärer Minjan” of the Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main and Professor of Jewish Studies at the Center for Comparative Theology and Cultural Studies (ZeKK) of the University of Paderborn, where she was the first woman to hold this chair. Since 2023, she has chaired the General Rabbinical Conference (Allgemeine Rabbinerkonferenz).
A trained political scientist, she first worked as a journalist for newspapers such as Der Tagesspiegel and die tageszeitung, as well as in radio and television, before becoming spokesperson for the Jewish Community of Berlin in 1997. Ordained as a rabbi in 2004, she served notably in Amsterdam (Beit Ha’Chidush community) before moving to Frankfurt. She obtained her doctorate in 2012 with a study on the political thought of Margarete Susman.
Committed since the 1990s to the renewal of the Jewish religious tradition, she co-founded the liberal synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin and launched in 1999 the “Bet Debora” initiative, the first European conference of rabbis, cantors and Jews with a rabbinical education.
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