Bio

Rabbi Jean Eglinton on her Pulpit Free Status: “Are we sitting around waiting for The End? Instead, let’s change our culture. Both through personal actions and organizing. Judaism insists that – no matter how hopeless the situation gets – we keep moving in the right direction: The direction of Justice and Compassion for all. Working against ecocide, racism, sexism, poverty, homophobia, antisemitism… pick a poison.  The antidote will be effective for all of them together or it won’t work at all. That’s my lens for reading Talmud, making reflective pieces on paper and plastic from my recycling and trash, and writing a new comic.”

Rabbi Jean E. Eglinton grew up in Connecticut. College included a year studying at the University of Montpelier, France. In 1981 she graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio with a BA in Art. In 2010 – after devoting the interim years to her family – she was ordained a Reform Rabbi at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. While studying at HUC-JIR, Student Rabbi Eglinton served congregations in Paducah, Kentucky; Louisville, Kentucky; and Newark, Ohio; as well as spending a summer as Student Chaplain at Cedar Village in Mason, Ohio. The student rabbi years also included a year living in Jerusalem, a week in Belarus conducting Passover Seders, and a week in Germany learning about contemporary Jews there. For her rabbinic thesis/capstone project she studied the morning creation prayer Yotzer Or, “The One Who Forms Light.” Rabbi Eglinton has moved on from being the spiritual leader of B’nai Sholom Congregation in Huntington WV. She is a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. You can view it on this site. Rabbi Eglinton is a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She is married with two grown sons.