Biography

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is Rabbi Emerita of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis where she served from 1977 to 2013. She was the second woman ever to become a rabbi and was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1974. She currently serves as the director of the Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts Initiative at the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute.

Rabbi Sasso is a past president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Gleaner’s Food Bank, and a past chair of the Spirit and Place Festival. She serves on numerous boards including the Indiana Humanities Council and is a co-founder of Women4Change Indiana.

Rabbi Sasso has been honored as one of the “Influential Women in Indiana” by the Indianapolis Business Journal and was featured among “Indy’s Most Influential Clergy” by NUVO News Weekly. She is the recipient of the Sagamore of the Wabash, Touchstone Award from Girls, Inc., Heritage Keepers Award from the Indiana State Museum, and the Spirit of the Prairie Award from Conner Prairie Interactive Park. The author of many articles and nationally acclaimed children’s books, Rabbi Sasso is a winner of the National Jewish Book Award and a 2018 recipient of the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. She is active in the civic and interfaith communities.

She received her B.A. and M.A. from Temple University and her D.Min. from the Christian Theological Seminary.