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“What is a rabbi?”
On December 29, 2021, reigning Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider selected
the $800 clue in the “I Am Woman” category. A picture of me, draped in a
purple-striped prayer shawl, appeared in the box along with this clue: “Koreanborn Angela Buchdahl is the first Asian American to be ordained a cantor as well as this leader of a Jewish congregation.” If you had told me as a little girl, newly immigrated with my Buddhist Korean mother and Jewish American father to a tiny Jewish community in Tacoma, Washington, that one day I would be featured as the Jeopardy! clue for “What is a rabbi?,” I would have said, That’s impossible.
This is the story of an unlikely rabbi. A story that could only happen in America.
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