Rabbi Maralee Gordon helped found the Chutzpah Collective, a radical Jewish political collective that utilized the inclusion of women in religious rituals as a jumping-off point for making all Jews feel welcome in the Jewish community, regardless of disability or sexual orientation. Gordon founded and edited the Jewish feminist newsletter Lilith’s Rib in the 1970s as a way to connect women who wanted to engage with Jewish feminist initiatives. She also worked as a synagogue education director and teacher of adult education classes before her ordination as a rabbi. As a founding member of the Chutzpah Collective, Gordon helped create prayers and rituals that reflected women’s experiences and found new ways to include Jews from all walks of life in the Jewish community. She then became a congregational rabbi, serving the McHenry County Jewish Congregation in Crystal Lake, Illinois, and running the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants at the McHenry County Jail. She helped found FaithBridge, an interfaith organization promoting mutual understanding between the religious communities of McHenry and Lake counties. In 2016 Gordon retired and was named rabbi emerita of McHenry County Jewish Congregation, where she still lends a hand as of 2023.