She’s cool, vivacious and exudes the energy of a spin instructor in a glitzy gym, but Rebecca Keren Eisenstadt is an ordained rabba. Her goal involves injecting religious identity, ritual and culture into the lives of Manhattan's ultra-wealthy Jews by means of a unique – and frequently flashy – form of spiritual leadership

NEW YORK – The last thing you might suspect about Rebecca Keren Eisenstadt, if you didn’t know her, is that she’s an ordained rabbi – or rabba, in Hebrew. Although many women have attained that status in the United States since Sally Priesand became the first, exactly 50 years ago, in June 1972, there’s something exceptional about Eisenstadt even within the pluralistic landscape of progressive Judaism. In fact, she acts more like a colorful reality-show star than what one typically expects of a rabbinical figure.

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