Asking the Clergy: Who are the least-known important women of your faith?

Women’s History Month, which grew out of the March 8 celebration of International Women’s Day, has been observed nationwide since 1987, according to the National Women’s History Alliance. This week’s clergy discuss the valiant women of their faith whose triumphs over sexism, racism, religious persecution and other challenges deserve recognition.

The Rev. Adrienne Brewington

Pastor, United Methodist Church of Babylon

Leontine Kelly, who died at the age of 92 in 2012, may be one of the least known, yet significant, woman of the United Methodist Church — although among African-American women of the church she may be more widely known.

In 1984, Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly was the first African American woman ordained a bishop in the United Methodist Church. Bishop Kelly served as pastor in the Southeastern United States, but she was elected as bishop by the Western jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. Bishop Kelly also served on the United Methodist Church on its General Board of Church and Society.

In 2000, when she was 80, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in upstate Seneca Falls. Her accomplishments came at a time women in the United States were still embroiled in the quest for equal rights under the Constitution. The United Methodist Church was not immune to the sexism, misogyny and racism that pervaded the wider society. Consequently, Bishop Kelly’s election and service are an encouragement to me. They are emblematic of what can be achieved even in the face of the destructive "isms" that still confront us.

Marie McNair of East Patchogue

Secretary, Regional Baha'i Council of the Northeastern States

As a recently revealed religion, the Baha’i faith and its history are not yet widely known. Many outstanding women have contributed to its establishment as the second most geographically widespread religion after Christianity (according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) and to furthering its purpose of the unification of humanity.

One woman whose story is not well known is Bahiyyih Khanum, daughter of Baha’u’llah, the prophet-founder of the Baha’i faith. Born in Iran in 1846 into a family of great privilege, Khanum was 6 years old when her father was arrested for his religious beliefs, the family’s home was pillaged, and they were forced to live in poverty. Thus began imprisonment and exile that lasted her whole life.

Even so, Khanum dedicated herself to service to others. Assuming leadership of the religion first in the 1910s and again in the 1920s, she demonstrated exemplary qualities of loving kindness, patience and fortitude that she had exhibited throughout her lifetime. When she died in 1932, the Baha’is mourned for nine months. Like other religions that have what Baha’u’llah calls "immortal heroines" — for example, in Christianity, the Virgin Mary; in Islam, Mohammed’s daughter — Baha’is believe that Bahiyyih Khanum is the outstanding heroine of our faith.

Rabbi Alyssa Mendelson Graf

Port Jewish Center in Port Washington

Judaism praises the eshet Chayil — the woman of valor — who plays countless roles in the life of her family. These women have been our mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts. For generations, they have guided us, taught us and cared for us, often out of the spotlight.

For example, Beruriah (circa 150 CE), was the wife of a sage who was respected in her own right as a scholar during her lifetime. Beruriah was a trailblazer. However, over time her story was retold and rewritten, and her brilliance dimmed a bit more with each retelling.

Centuries later, in 1934, Regina Jonas was ordained in Germany. The first woman to become a rabbi in history, Jonas served a community in Berlin until she was deported to Terezin, a concentration camp in the Czech Republic in 1942. She continued her rabbinic work there until she was deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in 1944.

Less than 30 years later, Rabbi Sally Priesand was the first woman officially ordained in the United States. Priesand and Jonas were glass-ceiling shatterers — and great women of valor — who broke the gender barrier in the rabbinate and continued our sage Beruriah’s work by distinguishing themselves as brilliant rabbis.