Born on November 8, 1974, Delphine Horvilleur is one of five women rabbis in France (as of 2024) and a leader of the Liberal Jewish Movement of France (MJLF, as the Reform movement is known in France).  

Horvilleur was born and raised in Nancy; her maternal grandparents were survivors of the concentration camps. At seventeen, she moved to Jerusalem, where she studied medicine at the Hebrew University before returning to France and shifting her focus to journalism, hoping to transform the world through her writing. She then moved to New York, where she studied at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, a pioneering institute that provides women with the opportunity to study classical Jewish texts, and was ordained by the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in 2008.  

After receiving her ordination, Horvilleur returned to France, where she became one of the three leaders of the Liberal Jewish Movement of France, as well as a rabbi for one of its Parisian synagogues. Since 2009, she has been the editor-in-chief of Tenou'a, a quarterly journal of Jewish art, thought, and creativity published by the MJLF.  

In France, Horvilleur is a public intellectual known for her frequent contributions in the media on feminism, Judaism, and antisemitism. She has written ten books, most notably Living With Our Dead (published in 2021 as Vivre avec nos morts), which was a bestseller in France. Her current activities reflect a more progressive kind of Judaism that is not as widespread in France. Relating Judaism with topics such as sexuality, feminism, and politics, her texts connect to a wider audience that is not necessarily always Jewish. 

Horvilleur is the recipient of several honors in France, including, in 2020, the Légion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit. Learn more about Delphine Horvilleur in the Women Rabbis collection and in the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 

Sources: 

"Delphine Horvilleur." Jewish Women’s Archive. Accessed August 12, 2024. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/horvilleur-delphine.  

“Delphine Horvilleur.” Wikipedia. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_Horvilleur.