About

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author and writer.  She was named by Newsweek as a “rabbi to watch,”  as a “faith leader to watch” by the Center for American Progress, has been a Washington Post Sunday crossword clue (83 Down) and called a “wunderkund of Jewish feminism” by Publishers Weekly.  

Her newest book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World has been hailed by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley as ““A must read for anyone navigating the work of justice and healing.” and by the author Rebecca Solnit as “brilliant.” 

She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Time, and many other publications. She has been featured on NPR, in The Atlantic, USA Today, NBC News, CNN, MTV News, Vice, Buzzfeed News, and elsewhere.

Her seven other books include Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting, which was a National Jewish Book Award finalist and PJ Library Parents’ Choice selection; Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, nominated for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature; The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism;  Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, and, with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, three books for the Jewish Publication Society’s Jewish Choices/Jewish Voices series: Sex and Intimacy, War and National Security, and Social Justice. 

She serves as Scholar in Residence at the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).  Before her ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in 2008, she worked as a freelance writer, and has in the years since also served as rabbi and educator at Tufts and Northwestern Universities, for Hillel International, for the dialogue project Ask Big Questions and for Avodah, an organization dedicated to creating leaders for economic justice. She lives in the Chicago area with her spouse and three children.