Imagine this: you’re up for a big promotion at work. The man whose job you’d inherit raises the question of whether the all-encompassing nature of the position would be a fit for you since you’re a working mother, and well, the “issue with working mothers is that when their child has to go to the emergency room, the mom feels she has to be there.”
And on the day everyone learns he’s retiring and that you’re a candidate for the position, you’re scheduled to speak at an event with Anne-Marie Slaughter, the author of a famous article arguing women can’t have it all.
And your husband’s on a business trip out of town.
And then, you get the phone call: your 8-year-old daughter needs to go to the E.R.
This happened to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.
Rabbi Buchdahl survived the day, won the promotion, and lived to tell the tale. Her journey of faith and rise to become the first female Senior Rabbi to lead New York City’s influential Central Synagogue is detailed in her new memoir “Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi, A Story of Faith, Identity and Belonging.”
(And most importantly, her daughter was just fine.)
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl: An “Unlikely Rabbi”
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s story is uniquely American. She is the daughter of a Jewish American father and a Korean Buddhist mother. The family moved to Tacoma, Washington, from South Korea when she was five, and she was raised in the Jewish faith while also heavily influenced by her mother’s Buddhist approach to spirituality.
It was in preparation for her bat mitzvah at age 12 that her rabbi suggested that she, too, could one day lead a congregation. At first, the idea made her giggle. But something took hold:
“My bat mitzvah actually was the first inkling,” she recalled. “Sharing Judaism with my 50 friends who came for their first bat mitzvah from my middle school, I was proud of what my tradition meant and represented, and of this story that I was taking my place in. And it actually didn’t seem quite so crazy.”
Claiming Her Jewish Identity
While her small Reform Jewish community in Tacoma embraced her, Rabbi Buchdahl encountered challenges as she began to make her way in the world. She faced questions about her Jewish identity (which some more conservative branches of Judaism view as only attainable via matrilineal lineage). On a trip to Israel during college, she became particularly discouraged.
She called her mother, crying.
“Everywhere I turn in the Jewish community, I feel judged or told I’m not the real thing. I want to be a rabbi, but I’m not sure I want to be a Jew anymore,” she said.
And it was her Korean Buddhist mother who, in her daughter’s moment of crisis, helped Rabbi Buchdahl solidify her faith.
She replied with a simple question. “Is that really possible?” Those four words made Rabbi Buchdahl realize her Jewish identity wasn’t something she could take on or take off like an ill-fitting coat. It was as fundamental to her identity as being Korean or being a woman.
A Cantor and a Working Mother
Rabbi Buchdahl married and took her first job as a cantor at a synagogue in Scarsdale, New York. She also became a mom, and like many working women, the adjustment was not easy.
”I had three children within five years. And those first years as a mother … I worked 40 hours a week. Some people would call that full-time, but it’s not a traditional full-time rabbi position.”
With her second child, she was able to scale back to 10 hours a week. “I think that I’m lucky that I had a chance to try being mostly home, because it made me realize that I’m not cut out for that either.”
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl On Leading Like a Woman
In 2006, Rabbi Buchdahl and her family moved to New York City when she joined Central Synagogue as cantor and associate rabbi. It was 2014 when she learned her predecessor was retiring, and she initially hesitated to throw her hat in the ring.
It was at that point that an advisor gave her some critical perspective.
“ The timing is never going to be perfect,” they told her. “If you don’t take this opportunity, someone else, probably a man, will take this job and take it for the next 25 years, and you will have lost your chance.”
Despite being well-liked in the community, landing the senior rabbi role was not a given. When one board member questioned whether she had the “gravitas” for the position, she understood “gravitas” as a stand-in for “you don’t look like a man.”
Her response was direct: “I will never be a 60-year-old male rabbi. If ‘gravitas’ for you is asking whether I have the leadership to take this community forward, you’ve witnessed me for the last eight years. You have to make that decision.”
Having now served as senior rabbi for more than a decade, Rabbi Buchdahl understands her strengths. It’s not about trying to do the job the same way someone else did, but rather carving her own path.
”I had to actually rethink: how might I do this job? How might the job look different when I’m in it?” she recalled.
”Over time, I helped change both the roles that I was filling but also the culture of the community and the staff around it,” said Rabbi Buchdahl. “I’m working even more than I did 12 years ago when I started, but I’m working smarter and doing different parts of the job. It’s grown, and it’s been immensely gratifying.”
