On January 25, 2015, the congregation of Temple Sinai in Oakland, California, voted to install Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin as senior rabbi. Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin is the first Chinese American Rabbi, ordained in 2002 at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York. Rabbi Mates-Muchin advocates for inclusion within the American Jewish community and supports many interfaith initiatives in her Bay Area community.   

Mates-Muchin was born in San Francisco, California, to a Chinese American mother and a white Jewish father. After graduating from HUC-JIR, she served as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, New York, for three years. She joined Temple Sinai as Associate Rabbi in 2005. In addition to serving her local community, Rabbi Mates-Muchin served as a Central Conference of America Rabbis (CCAR) representative to the Board of the Union for Reform Judaism for six years. As of 2024, she also serves on the CCAR Ethics Taskforce, which ensures that the CCAR’s ethics system meets the highest standard.   

Rabbi Mates-Muchin describes her upbringing as a seamless blending of two rich, ancient traditions. She appreciates the vibrant Chinese community in San Francisco, crediting her family with strengthening her connection to her Chinese American and Jewish identities. Her father encouraged her to consider the rabbinate after she expressed interest in the study of Judaism. Mates-Muchin’s thesis at HUC-JIR was titled “The Analects of Confucius and Its Parallel in Early Rabbinic Thought,” a reflection of her shared traditions and an exploration of the similarities between the two cultures. Amid the wave of anti-Asian violence sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Mates-Muchin reached out to Asian American organizations in the Bay Area in the hopes of building each other up and creating supportive bonds between community members. Mates-Muchin values the sense of belonging that permeates Jewish tradition. She teaches that valuing the minority opinion and seeing things from all perspectives is an integral part of Judaism, an outlook that creates potential for building cross-cultural bridges.    

Sources: 

Albert, Maddy. “Meet the First Chinese-American Rabbi, Jacqueline Mates-Muchin.” Kveller, April 21, 2021. https://www.kveller.com/meet-the-first-chinese-american-rabbi-jacquelin….   

Himmelstein, Drew. “Temple Sinai Has a New Senior Rabbi.” J Weekly, January 30, 2015. https://jweekly.com/2015/01/30/temple-sinai-has-a-new-senior-rabbi/.   

Mates-Muchin, Jacqueline. “Temple Sinai Clergy.” Clergy - Temple Sinai Oakland, 2024. https://www.oaklandsinai.org/clergy.html.   

“Ethics Related Committees.” Central Conference of American Rabbis, January 18, 2024. https://www.ccarnet.org/ethics-committee/.