Rabbi Jane Litman

Rabbi Litman supervises the Jewish Roundtable at the Pacific School of Religion’s Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies (CLGS). The Jewish Roundtable sponsors cutting-edge speakers on queer and Jewish issues, and convenes conferences and strategic summits for groups such as trans Jews, LGBT rabbis confronting Trumpism and Jewish queerspawn. She works closely with her Pacific Asian, African-American and Latinx colleagues addressing interfaith issues such as Religious Liberty and Trans Inclusivity using an intersectional approach. Rabbi Litman has served Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform and Gay Outreach congregations, and has been a consultant on moral education for diverse families for national Jewish institutions, the National Council of Churches and the Metropolitan Community Church. She was the Western Regional Director for JRF and a senior congregational consultant for the Reconstructionist movement. In addition to her rabbinate, she was a professor of Religion and Women’s Studies at California State University at Northridge and Loyola Marymount College, and currently teaches at the California Institute for Integral Studies. Rabbi Litman is highly committed to social action and interfaith work. She chaired the board of the Clinica Msgr. Oscar Romero, the Southern California Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights and the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, as well as served as a founding member of the executive committee of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. She is an international vice chair for Rabbis for Women of the Wall, and recently finished an eight-year term as a Peace and Justice Commissioner for the City of Berkeley. Widely published in the fields of Jewish women’s history, queer theory and contemporary theology, Rabbi Litman’s book, Lifecycles 2: Jewish Women on Scriptural Themes in Contemporary Life, co-edited with Rabbi Debra Orenstein, won prestigious academic and community awards. Her most recent work includes Krovai Elohim: All in God’s Family for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and her essay on Judaism in Struggling in Good Faith, co-edited by our colleague Mychal Copeland. She is currently working on Transkeit: Affirming Jewish Gender Diversity with Rev. Jakob Hero. Rabbi Litman hikes, gardens and cooks organic food with her spouse, Stewart Schwartz, in Berkeley, Calif.