On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, we are reposting a conversation from May 2019 with Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D., the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), Cincinnati. Rabbi Weiss died March 3, 2026.

“Rabbi Weiss has been a transformative presence at Hebrew Union College for more than two decades,” said HUC-JIR President Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D. “Her scholarship, vision, and fierce commitment to the formation of Jewish clergy have shaped this institution in ways that will endure for generations. We are grateful beyond measure for her service and hold her and her loved ones in our hearts.”

During her tenure, Rabbi Weiss championed several landmark initiatives, including a curricular redesign, the launch of the Virtual Pathway for Rabbinical students, the creation of the Seminary Hebrew Program, and a renewal of spiritual and professional formation as a core component of clergy studies.

In this interview, recorded in April 2019, Rabbi Weiss discusses the new book, American Values, Religious Voices: 100 Days. 100 Letters, which she co-authored with Lisa M. Weinberger.

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In 2016 and 2020, Rabbi Weiss created the interfaith public scholarship project called American Values, Religious Voices, bringing together 100 leaders across religions and denominations to write letters to the president and Congress for the first 100 days of the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, calling the project ‘a national, nonpartisan campaign created from the conviction that scholars who study and teach our diverse religious traditions have something important to say about our shared American values.’

A scholar of the Hebrew Bible, she won the American Jewish Book Award in 2011 as co-editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (CCAR Press, 2008), the first-ever Hebrew Bible commentary made up of scholarship by women rabbis, poets, and scholars.

After the 2016 presidential election, Rabbi Weiss teamed up with graphic designer Lisa M. Weinberger to create an “innovative volume” that addresses the concerns over the deep divisions in our country. While looking for ways to respond, many Americans turned to their respective religious leaders for guidance. These 100 letters —addressed to the president, vice president, and members of the 115th Congress and Trump administration—were written by some of America’s most accomplished and thoughtful scholars of religion. Dr. Weiss’s book is one of the first publications of the University of Cincinnati’s recently established press.

As provost, Rabbi Weiss led one of the United States’ oldest Jewish institutions through a decade of transformation, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of the seminary’s first remote curriculum. As a professor at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Weiss taught generations of students who would go on to lead congregations and Jewish communities across the world. She rarely turned down invitations to lead Bible study and share her scholarship, visiting synagogues and institutions across the country as a scholar-in-residence.”  

Her daughter noted in an email from HUC-JIR that “Rabbi Andrea Weiss was a prominent American rabbi and global leader in the Jewish community. As provost of Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Weiss became the first-ever woman to ordain rabbis in the Reform movement and was one of very few female rabbis to ever ordain Jewish clergy.”

During her time at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Weiss shaped generations of students. With each graduating class, newly ordained rabbis, cantors, educators, and communal professionals enter the world inspired by her example. Her work embodies a calling at once scholarly and spiritual: to draw out new voices from ancient words and to guide a vibrant Jewish future. Jewish Sacred Aging sends condolences to her husband Alan Tauber, their children Rebecca and Ilan, her father Marty Weiss, her siblings Mitch, Laura, and Roger, and Roger’s wife, Catherine Corrigan.

May her memory be for blessing.

To read tributes to Rabbi Weiss or share yours please visit this special page.

The post Remembering Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss: A Legacy of Leadership – Seekers of Meaning Rebroadcast from 2019 (3/13/2026) appeared first on Jewish Sacred Aging.