A rabbi and community leader, Jacqueline Koch Ellenson has balanced her concern for both Israeli and American women as chair of the Hadassah Foundation and director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network. Ellenson studied psychology and education at Barnard College, graduating in 1977, and went on to earn rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1983. She served as chaplain of the Harvard Westlake School in Los Angeles from 1991 to 2002. In 2003 she began taking an active role in the Women’s Rabbinic Network, the organization for women rabbis and rabbinical students in the Reform movement. She served as its director until 2015, advocating for equal pay and equal status for women rabbis. She also joined the board of the Hadassah Foundation in 2004, serving as chair from 2006 to 2010 and working to improve the lives of lower-income Israeli women and girls. A board member of the Rodeph Sholom School in New York from 2005 to 2011, she then turned her focus to adult education at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, where she continues to teach as of 2024. In 2011 she was named one of Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s 50 most influential rabbis.