jweekly.com – by Dan Pine, Staff Writer
As the new assistant rabbi and music director at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El, Reuben Zellman counts among his official duties tutoring b’nai mitzvah students and directing the choir.
Unofficially, his job description includes one other bullet point: trailblazer.
Zellman, 31, is only the second transgender rabbi ever ordained at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (he received his smicha on May 16 in Los Angeles). At Beth El, he joins Rabbi Yoel Kahn, who happens to be gay.