BOZEMAN — When Ed Stafman was designing the signs he hoped his supporters would plant on their lawns, he debated between two: “Elect Rabbi Ed” or “Elect Ed Stafman.”
Rabbi Ed Stafman with his family.
He settled on the version with his last name. After all, he said, “Everyone knows me as Rabbi Ed.”
Until the election in November, “everyone” meant the people in and around Bozeman, Mont., the college town where Stafman led Congregation Beth Shalom for a decade and remains active in interfaith and social justice initiatives.
But starting last month, “everyone” has grown to include his new colleagues in the Montana State Legislature.
Just weeks after being sworn into office Stafman — one of only a handful of American rabbis ever to reach statewide elected office — made a splash by wearing his colorful kippah on the statehouse floor.
The new job is a third act for Stafman, 67, who was an attorney on civil rights and death penalty cases in Tallahassee, Fla. for 25 years before being ordained as a rabbi by Aleph, the Jewish Renewal Movement, and moving to Bozeman in 2008.
“I might have been just as happy working at the local food bank or for other nonprofits doing the work of the community,” he says. “But I thought I could put both my lawyer skills and my rabbinic school skills together to make a more positive impact by serving in the Legislature.”
Stafman, a Democrat, leaned into his rabbinic identity as he campaigned to represent one of the most liberal districts in Montana, a state of about one million that reliably votes for Republican presidential candidates.
About 1,500 of those residents are Jewish, according to a 2019 population estimate.
A slideshow on his campaign page is typical Montana politics — Stafman hiking with his dog, Stafman mountain biking, Stafman posing with Democratic luminaries such as US Sen. Jon Tester. But interspersed among these, there’s Stafman at his pulpit and working with a rabbinical mission to refugees at the US-Mexico border.
Stafman is involved with T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights group.
Stafman began projecting his voice almost immediately after being sworn in.
His first floor speech last month addressed a bill that would effectively ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation.<
“Many of you promised limited government — ‘freedom, liberty, individual choice,’ you proclaim,” he said on the floor. “But this bill would interfere with the sacred freedom of all Montana women and families to make health care and religious choices together with their doctor, their clergy, their conscience and their G-d.”
Stafman pointed out in his speech to the lawmakers that Montana has a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protects employees who decline to provide services that contradict their beliefs.
“It currently protects people who oppose abortion rights,” he said, referring to medical staff who under the law may decline to assist in an abortion, “but doesn’t grant the same religious freedom to people who support them.”
The freshman legislator commented on a bill that would ban male-born transgender children from competing on girls’ sports teams.
“Judaism recognizes the dignity of human life, of every individual — every individual is made in G-d’s image,” Stafman said.
“But also the fact that trans girls statistically have no advantage against cis girls, that is ‘born’ girls, in sports.
“And that every major sporting organization such as the NCAA and the International Olympic Committee permits trans girls to participate in girls sports, albeit with certain conditions.”
Montana’s Legislature includes several lawmakers who are Native Americans.
“At least, during special occasions, they might wear their headdress, which is, I could say, a whole lot cooler than my kippah,” Stafman said.
Stafman knows his speeches are unlikely to change minds or law. Of the 100 lawmakers in Montana’s House, just 33 are Democrats.
“I gave an impassioned speech yesterday on the Jewish view of women’s reproductive rights and it didn’t change any minds,” he said. “But I think people listen.
“You know, all you could hope for is that people will listen and that you can create avenues to build relationships as things go forward to hopefully create opportunities for doing some good work. It’s not going to happen overnight. It takes time.”
