Danya Ruttenberg

Who is Danya Ruttenberg?

Danya Ruttenberg is an American rabbi, editor, and author. She was named one of The Jewish Week's "36 Under 36" in 2010, and the same year was named one of the top 50 most influential women rabbis by the Jewish Forward. When she was in college her mother died of breast cancer, and Ruttenberg practiced Jewish mourning rituals, which she said allowed her to "make friends with Judaism, to be open to it"; in 2008 she published a memoir of her spiritual awakening titled "Surprised by God: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Religion". This memoir was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. She was ordained in 2008 by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.

Ruttenberg is the editor of the 2001 anthology "Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism," and the 2009 anthology "The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism." She is also the Senior Jewish Educator at Tufts University Hillel, and a contributing editor to Lilith and Women in Judaism. She and Rabbi Elliot Dorff are co-editors of three books for the Jewish Publication Society’s Jewish Choices/Jewish Voices series: "Sex and Intimacy", "War and National Security", and "Social Justice".