In the 1960s, a debate gripped the American Jewish community. The question: whether whether women could become rabbis. It wasn't until 1973 that the Reform movement ordained the first woman rabbi in the United States -- Sally Priesand.

Rabbi Priesand retired this year after 25 years in the pulpit of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, N.J.

Reflecting back on her career as America's first woman rabbi, Priesand recalled that she was just 17 when she requested an application form from the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnatti, the Reform Movement's flagship seminary. This was the school's response:

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