Our rabbi emeritus

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah served BHPS from 2000-2021 and is now our much-valued rabbi emeritus.

A graduate of the London School of Economics and a lesbian feminist, Rabbi Elli entered Leo Baeck College in 1984 and was ordained as a rabbi in 1989, becoming the first lesbian in the world to lead a mainstream congregation.

A pioneer in the area of LGBTQ+ inclusion and same-sex marriage, putting this commitment at the heart of their work as a congregational rabbi, Rabbi Elli is also deeply committed to promoting human rights, social justice, interfaith dialogue, Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, and tikkun olam (repair of the world), and has written extensively on all these themes.

Author of Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012), Rabbi Elli has also edited/ co-edited five books and contributed dozens of articles and poems to various journals and anthologies. Rabbi Elli’s latest book, Breaking Binaries, was published in 2012.

Rabbi Elli adopted the middle name Tikvah in 1998 because: “My journey has taught me that whatever the challenges and obstacles we face, individually and collectively, we must embrace hope (in Hebrew, tikvah).”

Rabbi Elli’s website can be found here.