Rabbi Camille Angel
As of August of 2019, Rabbi Camille Angel is the first Rabbi-in-Residence for the University of San Francisco. Located in the Campus’s University Ministry Office, Rabbi Angel is a core faculty member of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice and works uniquely with students around LBGTQIA awareness. Inside the classroom, Rabbi Angel teaches a course titled Queering Religion, where she uses intersectionality as the framework to understand personal identities through a Jewish lens.
Prior to teaching at USF, Rabbi Angel was the spiritual leader at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a congregation in San Francisco that was founded by, and continually embraces, the Jewish Queer community. In 2008, she started coming to the USF campus each semester as a guest speaker in Aaron Hahn-Tapper’s class “Social Justice Activism and Jews.” After coming to a natural point of departure with Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, Rabbi Angel began teaching at San Francisco’s Jewish community day school and eventually in 2017 began her tenure in the Swig JSSJ program at USF.
With the help of Professor and Program Director, Aaron Hahn-Tapper, Rabbi Angel designed her course Queering Religion intentionally using the word “queer” in the title, and with the goal of having a class that speaks to LBGTQIA students on campus. Rabbi Angel uses the Sha’ar Zahav prayer book, a unique book including blessings for those coming from all walks of life, and that honors and celebrates queer and marginalized communities as a crucial teaching tool in her class.
Beginning in the Fall of 2020, Rabbi Angel will be teaching a new Community Engaged Learning (CEL) course entitled, Honoring Our LBGTQIA Elders. The class will enable students to be of service to our elderly community and help them celebrate their legacy as our elders.
Among Rabbi Angel’s hopes for the future is to create an archive for LGBTQIA Life Cycle Rituals and Liturgy.
