Born in New York on March 7, 1963,[3] she moved to Israel at age eight and began studying with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach at age sixteen.[1] In 1985 she completed a BA degree in history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[3] She says that in 1994, Carlebach granted her religious ordination (smicha), normally reserved for men.[1][4][5][6] Her ordination as well as that of Eveline Goodman-Thau was revealed in 2000 in an article by the New York Jewish Week.[7][8] Feigelson is also described as being ordained in 1996 by a panel of three rabbis after Carlebach's death.[7][9][10] She earned a masters degree in Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University in 2000.[3] Upon completion of her studies she had expertise not only in Torah but also Chasidic literature and thought with a desire to teach all who wanted to learn.[1] In 2016 she earned her doctorate from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.[3] Her doctoral dissertation explores Jewish funeral rituals and how individuals can reclaim their funerals as the final chapter of life, rather than the first chapter of death.[11]
In 2001 she left her role as associate director and head of the women’s beit midrash at Yakar in Jerusalem, an Orthodox synagogue she helped found in 1992,[3] and moved to Los Angeles to teach in the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at University of Judaism where she was the students’ mashpiah ruchanit, or spiritual guide.[4][8] She taught at the school until 2017, when she moved back to Israel to take a similar position at the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem.[11] She uses the title "Reb" rather than "Rabbi"[8] and is universally known as "Reb Mimi".[11]
Feigelson was among the few Orthodox women rabbis to have received private ordination in the Orthodox Jewish context before the institutional change that resulted in the founding of Yeshivat Maharat.[9] Other women in her position include Haviva Ner-David and Dina Najman (both ordained in 2006). In 2010 she was recognized as one of the fifty most influential female Rabbis in the U.S by The Forward.[12]
^Israel-Cohen, Y. (2012). Chapter Five: Orthodox Women Rabbis?“It’s Only a Matter of Time”. In Between Feminism and Orthodox Judaism (pp. 69-78). Brill.
