Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum is co-founder of the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis, a joint project of the HaMidrasha Educational Center for Israeli Judaism and the Shalom Hartman Institute. She is also the founder of Kehilat Zion in Jerusalem. Her work spans and links tradition and innovation, working toward Jewish spiritual and ethical renaissance. She devotes much of her energy to the renewal of community life in Israel and the struggle for human rights. She has served as rabbi of Congregation Magen Avraham in the Negev; as a congregational rabbi in the New York suburbs alongside Rabbi Gordon Tucker; and as Assistant Dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem. In 2010 she was named by the Forward as one of the five most influential female religious leaders in Israel for her work promoting pluralism and Jewish freedom.