Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, All the Best.

While many of our listeners are no doubt getting ready for Christmas festivities this week,

for others the winter celebrations have already begun.

Candles are being lit, loved ones are gathering close, and Lakkas are already sizzling in oil,

as our Jewish friends, family, and neighbors

are celebrating Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. From Gerta Lerner to Gloria Steinem to

Betty Friedan, I have always admired the contributions of Jewish women to feminist thought,

and yet we haven't had the opportunity to highlight voices from the Jewish community yet this season.

With that in mind, I was so grateful to be put in contact with a fabulous writer, thinker, and

Rabbi Hera Person, who generously volunteered to join us this holiday season and share some

stories of powerful women in the Jewish holiday tradition.

To introduce our guest, Rabbi Herah Persson is the chief executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She served as an educator at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue from 1990 to 1996 and was the adjunct rabbi there from 1998 to 2019.

Since 1998, Rabbi Persson has been the High Holy Day Rabbi of Congress and was the adjunct rabbi there from 1998 to 2019.

Since 1998, Rabbi Person has been the High Holy Day Rabbi of Congregation Benai Olam in Fire Island Pines, New York.

Rabbi Person was the editor-in-chief of U.R.J. Books and Music, where she was responsible for the revision of the Torah, a modern commentary, and was also the managing

editor of the Torah, a women's commentary, named the National Jewish Book Award Book of the

Year in 2008. Her essays and poems have been published in various anthologies and journals,

including Bridges, a Jewish feminist journal, Up Street, Encyclopedia of Jewish-American

Popular Culture, Women and Judaism, the Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, and the

Women's Haftara Commentary. Rabbi Persson lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the mother of two adults.

Welcome, Rabbi Person.

It's getting to be that holiday season, and I'm here to talk about the holiday of Hanukkah.

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