News Release: Leo Baeck College appoints Rabbi Deborah Kahn-Harris as new Principal

The Board of Governors of Leo Baeck College (LBC) voted on Monday night to accept the unanimous
recommendation of the Principal Search Committee to appoint Rabbi Deborah Kahn-Harris to take over as the new Principal from Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein who following the completion of his five-year term, will remain at the College in an academic role as Professor of Jewish History and Homiletics.

Newly elected Chairman of LBC, Alasdair Nisbet said, “Deborah is one of a new generation of leaders of the Progressive Jewish Community that was trained at the College. I believe that she is one of the first women to be appointed to lead a rabbinic college anywhere in the world. I look forward to working closely with her”.

Rabbi Kahn-Harris was raised in Houston, Texas and received her BA in Art History from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She came to the UK in 1989 to study at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, before entering the semicha programme at LBC. She was ordained in 1996, subsequently working for the Reform Movement, initially as a university chaplain then was appointed Director of Student and Young Adult Work. In 2001 she departed to live in Jerusalem for a year, where she taught in several places. After a brief stint as temporary assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne, Australia, she returned to the UK where she has divided her working time between serving on the rabbinic team at Sha’arei Tsedek North London Reform, teaching at LBC, and researching Bible at the University of Sheffield.

Rabbi Kahn-Harris commented, “For more than half a century Leo Baeck College has stood at the heart of Progressive Judaism in Europe. I am both humbled and thrilled to be offered this opportunity to lead the College into the next chapter of its history.”

Stephen Ross
Executive Director

For additional information please contact Stephen Ross on 020 8349 5600 or email Stephen Ross

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