Rabbi Lydia Medwin

Denomination: Reform Judaism (URJ)
Organization: The Temple, Atlanta, GA

Rabbi Lydia Medwin serves as Associate Rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia, where she joined the clergy team in 2014. She came to Atlanta with a background in community organizing and a passion for ensuring human dignity and justice through her rabbinate.

Rabbi Medwin is a primary lead with The Temple's Rothschild Social Justice Institute, partnering with lay leaders, nonprofits, and city leaders to protect democracy, increase access to reproductive rights, improve public education, and address racial justice and environmental sustainability. She co-founded and serves as co-chair of the board of the Multifaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration, a national effort to bring a unified faith voice to the crisis of mass incarceration, and she co-founded Faith Rooted ATL, a multifaith organizing table for Metro Atlanta's faith community. She serves on the boards of JOIN for Justice, the Atlanta Rabbinic Association, and the Union for Reform Judaism Commission for Social Action.

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Rabbi Medwin studied at the University of Texas at Austin and Hebrew University, earning degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Honors Humanities. She was ordained in 2010 on the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where she also earned a Master of Hebrew Letters and a Master of Jewish Education. Before Atlanta, she served for four years as a pulpit rabbi at Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles.

Rabbi Medwin is a co-author of the Relational Judaism Handbook (Kripke Institute, 2019) and a contributor to ReformJudaism.org. A certified Jewish mindfulness meditation teacher and certified yoga instructor, she leads The Temple's conversion program and teaches in its adult education program. She is married to Rabbi Dan Medwin, and they have three children.