As both one of the first women and one of the first openly gay rabbis to be ordained in Britain, Elli Tikvah Sarah has profoundly reshaped the liberal Jewish community of Britain. Born Elizabeth Klempner, Sarah earned a degree in sociology from the London School of Economics in 1977. She worked as a writer and editor of books and journals for several feminist collectives and women’s studies organizations before entering rabbinical school at the Leo Baeck College in 1984 as one of two openly gay women students. After her ordination in 1989, she became rabbi of Buckhurst Hill Reform Synagogue for five years before becoming both Director of Programmes for the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain and professor at the Leo Baeck College in 1994, where she taught until 2009. In 2000 Sarah joined a working party of the Liberal Judaism Rabbinic Conference to create liturgy for commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples. That same year, she became rabbi of the Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue, where she married her partner, Jess Wood, in 2006. Sarah retired from Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue in 2021, after 21 years and is now Rabbi Emeritus. While serving as rabbi, she volunteered as Liberal Jewish Chaplain of Brighton and Sussex Universities. She wrote monthly articles for the Sussex Jewish News from 2000 to 2021. In 2012 she published a collection of essays, Trouble-Making Judaism.