 There was a special commission appointed by the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Gerson D. Cohen) to study the issue of ordaining women as rabbis, which met between 1977 and 1978, and consisted of 11 men and three women; the women were Marian Siner Gordon, an attorney, Rivkah Harris, an Assyriologist, and Francine Klagsbrun, a writer.After years of discussion, the JTS faculty voted to ordain women as rabbis and as cantors in 1983.The first female rabbi to graduate from the school (and the first female Conservative Jewish rabbi in the world) was Amy Eilberg, who graduated and was ordained as a rabbi in 1985.