Jill Hammer

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is the co-director of the Kohenet Institute, a program in Jewish women’s spiritual leadership (www.kohenet.org). She is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy of Jewish Religion (www.ajrsem.org). Rabbi Hammer is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women and The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons.

Faith and Practice

The Hebrew Goddess: Complexity, Unity, Gender, and Society

By Jay Michaelson and Jill Hammer

Editor Rabbi Jill Hammer speaks with Jay Michaelson about the new Kohenet Siddur.

Faith and Practice

Priestesses, Bibliomancy, and The Anointing of Miriam

By Jill Hammer

I was tired of hearing over and over of Miriam’s punishment, the tzara’at (often mistranslated as leprosy) that struck her for criticizing Moses. Then I realized that the final ritual Miriam would have gone through, after her exclusion from the camp as a metzara’at, is virtually identical to the ritual her brother and his sons went through in order to become priests. In terms of ritual, it could just as well be her ordination ceremony.