Alona Lisitsa (born 1971)[1] is the first female rabbi in Israel to join a religious council.[2] Although Leah Shakdiel, who was not a rabbi, joined the Yerucham religious council in 1988 after a Supreme Court decision in her favor, no female rabbi had joined a religious council until Lisitsa joined Mevasseret Zion’s in 2012.[3] She was appointed to the council three years before that, but the Religious Affairs Ministry delayed approving her appointment until Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered it to.[4]
Lisitsa was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and is a Reform rabbi.[4][5] She works at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem.[5]