About the author
More about Julie Greenberg, mother, rabbi, therapist, activist, author.
Julie Greenberg parents her five children within a web of connection that includes lovers, former lovers, a gay male parenting partner, birth parents, sperm donors and beloved friends. Pulsing through her family life is a commitment to integrating spirituality, justice work and mothering.
Julie grew up in Washington D.C. as the oldest of five daughters; she was raised by a mother who was steeped in early childhood education and progressive values. The family spent several years in Mississippi, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, where her mother Polly helped start an innovative statewide Head Start program. Julie’s father, Daniel, is a journalist who writes about the politics of science.
Julie attended public school in Washington and Mississippi for most of her young years and also attended a progressive private school, Georgetown Day School, for four years. She dropped out of her dysfunctional D.C. highschool at age 16 to work as a waitress and travel in Europe, studying literature, art and education in each country. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1979 with a special major in Religion, History and Economics.
Throughout her life, Julie has found or created meaningful work to make the world a better place. For a few years after college, Julie did full-time feminist organizing on the west coast, supporting herself by working in a juice bar, in daycare centers and at under-funded non-profits.
In 1980 Julie founded and directed Mountain Meadow Feminist Camp on her mother’s mountaintop in South Central Pennsylvania. The wilderness camp embraced children from LGBTQ families, creating an affirming community for children growing up in families that did not yet have rights and recognition. The camp moved to New York and then New Jersey and served generations of children and counselors during its decades of operation.
Starting in1983, Julie studied at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) near Philadelphia. Though her feminist and gay activism sometimes branded her a heretic during and after her time at RRC, the College recently honored her with a Doctor of Divinity honorary degree. Since graduating in 1989, she has made her home in the racially and economically mixed urban village of Mt. Airy, Philadelphia.
Julie became a mother on July 11, 1987. Her five children came into the family by birth and by adoption. The oldest three kids are now college graduates, Brown 2010, Yale 2012, Yale 2013 and the youngest two are finishing highschool and middle school.
Julie has devoted herself to raising healthy human beings who manage the inevitable challenges of life with skill and support. The family has weathered challenges such as ADHD, depression, anxiety and limited finances, by building supportive connections, instilling skills for life, and creating a family culture of love, care and hope. As a parent Julie has found many ways to link the daily acts of family life with big values that sustain multiracial, earth friendly, socially just community.
For 12 years, starting in 1990, Julie was the founding director of the Jewish Renewal Life Center, a project of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. This pioneering program offered a year-long immersion in Jewish living, learning and activism for Jewish seekers of all ages. During these same years Julie built a rabbinic private practice in Philadelphia offering life cycle services such as weddings, baby namings, funerals and Bar and Bat Mitzvah training and ceremonies. She was one of the first rabbis in the world to do same-sex weddings, to welcome interfaith couples and families, and to work closely with clergy from other faiths in co-officiations.
In 2001, Julie became the rabbi of Reconstructionist Congregation Leyv Ha-Ir~Heart of the City in Philadelphia. After training at the Council for Relationships in family and systems therapy, she also became a licensed marriage and family therapist. Each year she takes a small number of people into her private therapy practice called Counseling with Soul.
While rooting herself in a particular Jewish community, Julie takes on the world as her congregation. She currently spends many hours a week doing social justice work, as a rabbi, on issues including climate justice, public education and living wages for families. She works with the multi-faith network POWER, Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower and Rebuild, a member of the national PICO, People Involved in Community Organizing, network. She is also a member of the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace and a board member of the Jewish Multiracial Network.
Reading a retrospective summary like this may obscure all the typical life junctures of confusion, wandering, wondering, self doubt and defeat. As with any life, Julie has had dreams and disappointments, resilience and regrets, failings and fulfillments. Read the book to find out more about Julie’s journey, and write to Julie to share your own stories, questions and comments!