Rabbi Leah Jordan

Leah (she/they) is Rabbi of Kehillah North London, as well Progressive Jewish Chaplain for university students.

Hailing originally from, as Bob Dylan wrote, a ‘country called the Midwest’, Leah has lived and worked since 2011 in Great Britain. Prior to Kehillah, they served as rabbi of the Norwich Liberal Jewish Community.

Leah has spent more than three years at various yeshivas and intensive Jewish learning centres, including Yeshivat Hadar in New York City, the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and SVARA; inspired by what Torah is and can do, Leah is co-coordinator of Azara-Opening the Beit Midrash, an initiative creating Jewish text learning for everyone in the UK, . 

They are also a current and founding member of Na’amod, a movement of Jews in the UK seeking to end our community’s support for Israel’s occupation and apartheid, and to mobilise it in the struggle for freedom, equality and justice for all Palestinians and Israelis. 

Leah received semicha from the Leo Baeck College in London and also holds an MA in Jewish Studies from King’s College London, and a BA in English Literature from the University of Kansas, with concentrations in Modern European History and French language studies at the Alliance Française in Paris. 

Leah loves speculative fiction and fan fiction. She lives in Maida Hill with her partner, Benji Stanley, also a rabbi, and daughter, Jules Pessie.