Obituaries

Her husband, Ray Howe, died in 2001.

Survivors include two sons, Robert A. Howe of Bethesda and Lawrence A. Howe of Chevy Chase; a brother; and four grandchildren.

-- Joe Holley

Carole MeyersL.A.'s First Female Rabbi

Carole Meyers, 50, the first female rabbi to lead a congregation in the Los Angeles area, died of bone cancer July 26 at her suburban Los Angeles home.

Rabbi Meyers, who led Temple Sinai of Glendale, Calif., from 1986 until 2001, was a native Washingtonian who graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda and the University of Maryland. She graduated from the Hebrew Union College seminary in New York and was ordained in 1983. She was an assistant rabbi in Houston for the next three years until being selected for the California position.

The appointment of a 29-year-old single woman three years removed from seminary as solo rabbi was uncommon for the time.

Reform Judaism ordained its first female rabbi in 1972, and the Conservative movement followed in 1985. Orthodox Jews oppose the ordination of women. By 1987 there were 101 female Reform rabbis in the United States. Few of those women led congregations, however.

A vibrant preacher and insightful teacher who called herself a liberal activist, Rabbi Meyers was a leader in the Jewish Reform movement, serving on the board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and developing curriculum for Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. She volunteered as chaplain for the Glendale Police Department. In the mid-1990s, she served on a Glendale task force formed to develop a response to hate crimes after swastikas were spray-painted on Temple Sinai and other houses of worship.

Survivors include her husband of 17 years, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ralph Zarefsky of Glendale; two sons, Joe Zarefsky and Gus Zarefsky, both of Glendale; three brothers, Lawrence Meyers of Boynton Beach, Fla., and Eric Meyers and Philip Meyers, both of Potomac; a sister, Marian Fox of Columbia; and her stepfather, Daniel Zwick of Washington.