Alysa Stanton, the first African American female rabbi, will step down as the leader of Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, N.C., this summer. After less than two years, the congregation decided that it would not renew her contract.
"We felt Rabbi Stanton has brought a lot of gifts to the congregation, but we felt she wasn't a good fit for the direction we're going," board president Samantha Pilot told the Forward. "I can tell you with certainty that race — I never heard that come up once during her tenure or now. It's a non-issue."
Stanton says she didn't decide to leave, but she will finish out her contract at the end of July. In 2009, Stanton was an inductee into The Root 100.
Read more about this story at the Jewish Daily Forward.
A previous version of this article misstated the location of Congregation Bayt Shalom.
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