Rabbi Aviva Kipen, TPTC, MA
Following her studies in London, Aviva was the first Australian woman to receive rabbinic ordination in the Progressive/Liberal/Reform stream of Judaism. After service in the UK and New Zealand, Aviva was assistant to John Levi at Temple Beth Israel, Melbourne 1995-1998. She has served as Rabbi of the Bentleigh (Melbourne) progressive Synagogue for two years. She is a couple therapist formerly interned at Relationships Australia, a specialist counsellor in grief and loss, with particular emphasis on the dislocations experienced in moving from place to place, course to course and language to language. She is also a graduate of the Williamson Community Leadership Programme (1998) and is in her third year as minister of religion on the Monash University's human ethics committee.
Aviva is responsible for the registration of religious education teachers of faiths other than Christianity in Victorian Schools for DEET; serves as secretary to the Victorian Leaders of Faith Communities Forum and special projects officer for the World Conference on Religion and Peace in Victoria; regularly liaises with the Interchurch Chaplaincy Committee of Victoria re hospital and medical issues. She is in frequent personal contact with a range of chaplains in Melbourne and regular guest speaker at in-service training for clergy colleagues. She acted as consultant to Exclusion and Embrace, the second national conference on Spirituality and Disability in October 2001. She has also been involved for a number of years in the Victorian Dialogue between Christians and Jews.
Aviva was Program Director for Victoria's Multifaith Religious Celebration of the Centenary of Federation, A Sense of Place, held at the Royal Exhibition Building in May 2001, and served on the task-force established by the state Department of Premier and Cabinet to create and deliver the Multifaith Gathering in commemoration of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, held on September 20. She also co-ordinated the Victorian government's multifaith celebration of the new millennium. Aviva has been working towards a Doctor of Ministry Studies with Melbourne College of Divinity and hopes to make a smooth transition to PhD candidacy at Monash in the current academic year.
This site is maintained by
Rev Judy Redman UCA Chaplain, University of New England
email: jredman@metz.une.edu.au
and was last updated on 13 March 2002.