Introduction
Benay Lappe (Hebrew:בִּגֵיי לַפֶּה/בנאי לאפה) is an American rabbi and a teacher of Talmud in the United States. In 2016, Lappe was awarded the Covenant Award for innovation in Jewish education by the Covenant Foundation.
Biography
Lappe was born on April 13, 1960, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. She earned a BA in Italian Literature and a MA in Education from the University of Illinois, an MA in Hebrew Letters from the University of Judaism, and an MA in Rabbinic Literature and semicha ("rabbinic ordination") from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Lappe is a professor at the University of Illinois, Temple University, American Jewish University, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and the Graduate Theological Union's Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley. She is Professor of Talmud at the Hebrew Seminary in Skokie, Illinois, and serves as the Executive Director and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA (Hebrew:סְבָרָא), a yeshiva in Chicago.