Rabbi Rachel Gartner has served as the Director for Jewish Life at Georgetown University and faculty lecturer since 2011.  In 2019, she joined the leadership team of In Your Shoes, a project in Theatrical Performance and Dialogue, of Georgetown’s The Lab for Global Performance and Politics.

Rabbi Gartner is co-author of Moving Tradition’s nationally acclaimed, Rosh Hodesh: It’s A Girl Thing Sourcebook, and has authored numerous opinion pieces appearing in The Huffington Post, The Hill, and The Washington Post, and in national Jewish media.  Television and radio appearances include CNN and NPR’s 1A.  

Rabbi Gartner is a fellow of the distinguished cross-denominational Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellowship of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, NYC (you can hear her on their CD here), the Cooperberg Rittmaster Rabbinic Fellowship of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, and the Pardes Rabbi as Rodef Shalom (Pursuer of Peace) Community of Practice. Rabbi Gartner is a past co-chair of the national board of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.  

Ordained with awards in Spiritual Motivated Social Action, and Practical Rabbinics from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2002,  Rabbi Gartner also has certificates in mediation and dialogue facilitation from the Conflict Resolution Center, Richmond, IN, the Institute for Sustained Dialogue, Washington, DC, and Resetting the Table, NYC. 

Rabbi Gartner lives in Washington DC with her (fiction author) spouse David and their (perfect) (-: son Reuben.