Rabbi Goldie Milgram [2]is the founder and director of Reclaiming Judaism (1998), and Editor-in-Chief of Reclaiming Judaism Press. She is also a widely published, award-winning author and innovator of methods, resources and programs for meaningful Jewish living. Her newest books are Reclaiming Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a Spiritual Rite of Passage [3], and antholgies: Mitzvah Stories: Seeds for Inspiration and Learning [4] (honored at the National Jewish Book Awards), New Mitzvah Stories for the Whole Family [5] and Seeking and Soaring: Jewish Approaches to Spiritual Guidance and Development [6].
Rabbi Goldie Milgram holds a doctorate, M.S.W., and M.H.L. in addition to her rabbinic graduation from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the lineage smichah (ordination) of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi as rabbi, mashpi'ah, maggid and shaliach. She founded and directs the 501C3 Reclaiming Judaism and Reclaiming Judaism Press and is Dean of the Maggid-Educator Ordination Program and Bar/Bat Mitzvah [R]evolution at Bmitzvah.org. Her tenure in Jewish communal service has been in virtually every position--from serving as a Jewish Federation and Board of Jewish Education executive through an extensive career in academia--as a Dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion and now for the Jewish Spiritual Educator Maggid-Educator Ordination Program, on faculty for the ALEPH Ordination Programs, Princeton University, and Gettysburg College, as well as director and then consultant in Innovative Jewish Life and Learning for the 92nd St Y and other Jewish community centers, camps and college student life programs, and schools. Link to Resume [7]
"Reb Goldie," or "Rabbi Goldie" as Rabbi Milgram is affectionately called by her students, was founding chairperson of the first program of gender studies at a Jewish institution of higher learning, which evolved after her tenure into what is known today as Kolot. She also served for over a decade as founding innovator of, and anchor person for NBC 40's Health Watch, America's first public health talk television program. She also long-volunteered as a scholar-in-residence for Project Kesher, and also helped to found the UN affiliate, the Women Founders Collective, which provides support to women in developing nations in the creation of NGOs.
Presently also the Book Review Editor for the Philadelphia Jewish Voice, Goldie also teaches for the Gamliel Institute, the Sarasota Liberal Yeshiva and Jewish Values Online, in addition to traveling at least half of the year doing research and serving as a scholar-in-residence for communities and organizations. Rabbi Milgram also innovated, and for over a decade directed and co-anchored, the first public health television interview program, Health Watch for NBC TV 40, as well as a newspaper column by the same name. For these, as well as her volunteer leadership in the creation of programs for professional and public health education she was named an American Cancer Society Most Distinguished Citizen and holds additional journalism awards from the Council of Jewish Federations.
"She helps us to bring heart and soul to our involvement in Jewish life."
--Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi