Rab­bi Alysa Mendel­son Graf was ordained by the Hebrew Union Col­lege-Jew­ish Insti­tute of Reli­gion. She received her JD from Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty of Law and her BA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. Once a mat­ri­mo­ni­al attor­ney in Man­hat­tan, she is the rab­bi of Port Jew­ish Cen­ter a small, haimish syn­a­gogue in Port Wash­ing­ton, NY, after being an asso­ciate at a large sub­ur­ban con­gre­ga­tion for almost a decade. Rab­bi Mendel­son has served as co-Pres­i­dent of the Women’s Rab­binic Net­work, she was a STAR (Syn­a­gogues: Trans­for­ma­tion and Renew­al), PEER fel­low a fel­low with the Syn­er­gy-NY Rab­binic Fel­low­ship for Vision­ary Lead­ers, and is in the cur­rent cler­gy cohort of the lead­er­ship fel­low­ship through the Insti­tute for Jew­ish Spirituality.