Honoree
RABBI SUSAN GROSSMAN
Senior Rabbi, Beth Shalom Congregation
Senior Rabbi, Beth Shalom Congregation
Identified by the New York Jewish Week and The Forward as one of 45 Jewish leaders to watch in the 21st century and honored as a Woman of the Year by Jewish Woman magazine, Rabbi Grossman has broken the stained-glass ceiling numerous times in her career. A member of the first class of women accepted into the rabbinical school of Jewish Theological Seminary, she was the first woman to lead a synagogue both in Westchester, New York (Genesis Agudas Achim Congregation) and here in Howard County, Maryland. She joined Beth Shalom Congregation in 1997. Her 33 years of service in the pulpit, including 25 years of service at Beth Shalom, sets her as one of the longest serving female pulpit rabbis in the Conservative Movement and one of the first to become Emerita when she retires as of July 1, 2022.
Rabbi Grossman was appointed to the prestigious Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Conservative Movement in 1992. One of the first women and, for many years the only woman to serve on it, she is also one of the longest serving members of the CJLS. As chair of the then Sub-Committee on Family, Gender, and Women, she helped shepherd passage of the decision permitting gay marriage and gays in the rabbinate. She has written several landmark teshuvot (rabbinic decisions) expanding the legal status of women in Judaism and protecting women’s reproductive health. Most recently, she has been deeply involved in shaping Movement policy for coping with COVID-19. Rabbi Grossman also helped shape women’s life cycle liturgy, creating the Conservative Movement’s liturgy to mourn miscarriage and, with other women colleagues, the Movement’s official baby naming ceremonies for girls.
Rabbi Grossman is perhaps best known for her work as one of the editors of the Conservative Movement’s Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary, for which she worked with Rabbi Harold Kushner on the Derash section and co-edited with Rabbi Elliot Dorff the Halakha L’Maaseh section. She has written numerous articles on the role of women in Judaism and co-edited with the late Orthodox activist Rivka Haut the anthology Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue.
Locally, Rabbi Grossman has helped lead interfaith coalitions of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and other partners to combat intolerance, advocate for cultural diversity in the school calendar and Howard County Public Schools (HCPSS), and build bridges of understanding. She has served as the Equity Liaison to the schools for the Howard County Board of Rabbis for most of her 25 years here. For 20 years, she led the annual Martin Luther King/Abraham Joshua Heschel Interfaith Service in cooperation with local African American church partners and the Martin Luther King Day Holiday Commission. She was honored by the Commission in 2002 for her interfaith leadership. These programs laid the foundation for a series of interfaith dialogues under the umbrella of PATH, People Acting Together in Howard County, in response to rising hate bias incidents in Howard Count and a multi-year groundbreaking series of Jewish-Muslin dialogues on religion and international politics with the Howard County Muslim Council that was highlighted as a model of Jewish-Muslim cooperation in a study supported by the Carnegie Foundation. She helped found and continues to serve on the Core Team of Howard County Courageous Conversations, recipient of numerous grants and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s top Schechter Award for Innovation and Impact.
In the larger Jewish community, she has regularly served as President of the Howard County Board of Rabbis and as Chair of the Jewish Federation of Howard County’s annual Holocaust Commemoration. For many years she served on Jewish Women’s International Clergy Task Force on Domestic Violence. She led four Beth Shalom Missions to Israel, spearheaded local community support for JNF’s reservoir and Sedorot projects, and was honored by Israel Bonds for her leadership in sustaining the only annual synagogue Israel Bond Drive in Howard County. She also helped launch a national Bond campaign to support the Masorti Movement (Israel’s Conservative Movement). She and her son Yoni were honored by Magen David Adom (MDA, Israel’s Red Cross) for his Bears for Life Project that educated the nation about the impact of terrorism and resulted in the 2005 dedication at Beth Shalom of a Bears For Life/Beth Shalom MDA ambulance.
On a national level, Rabbi Grossman was one of a number of American rabbis chosen to meet with King Abdullah of Jordan and as part of an interfaith delegation invited by the Ambassador of Morocco to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an effort to build bridges of peace. She was twice invited to meetings at the White House under the Obama Administration for her justice work in furthering interfaith cooperation.
An accomplished speaker, storyteller, and scholar, Rabbi Grossman has been honored to share the spiritual and life journeys of her congregants with a rare blend of ruach (spirit), intellectual stimulation, playfulness, and pastoral compassion. She is particularly proud of her role in creating Beth Shalom’s Purim Silly Symphony and popular pop culture, multi-generational “Themed Shabbats” including Harry Potter and Magic, and Jews in the Civil War, Space, Sports, and Comics among other themes. She has been particularly committed to nurturing, educating, and inspiring children through her involvement in the Religious School, developing an innovative Bnai Mitzvah program, involving students in creative synagogue event planning, and challenging students with SAT words.
Before entering the rabbinate, she directed Holocaust programming and education for the National Jewish Resource Center (now CLAL) under Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and worked for many years as a journalist and editor.
Rabbi Grossman has a Doctorate in Ancient Judaism from Jewish Theological Seminary. She lives in Howard County with her husband David Boder. She is very proud of their son Yoni, a labor lawyer, and her daughter-in-law Maddie, an actress, who live in New York City.
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