Last month, Compassion & Choices Faith Outreach Manager Zeena Regis presented Rabbi Ariel Stone with the 2023 Reverend Dr. Paul Smith award. The event, hosted by the Eastside Jewish Commons (EJC) in Portland, Oregon, was called “It Won’t Kill You to Talk about Death!” and explored death and dying from a Jewish perspective.

Rabbi Stone, along with Rabbis Eve Posen, Barry Cohen and Abby Cohen, discussed topics ranging from estate planning and advance directives to jewish death and dying rituals and green burials. Rabbi Stone wrote the definitive text, the Alef-Bet of Death, Dying as a Jew: A Guide for the Dying out of Jewish Tradition Sources, which explores death through the prism of Jewish learning and culture.

Stone has been Congregation Shir Tikvah’s spiritual leader since its founding in 2002. She is the first female rabbi to head a congregation in the state of Oregon as well as the first American rabbi to lead a congregation in the former Soviet Union and the first progressive rabbi to serve the Jewish community in Ukraine.

Rabbi Stone has demonstrated a decades-long commitment to the end-of-life options movement and continues to advocate for improving end-of-life care and having necessary conversations with your community about death and dying.

Rabbi Ariel Stone speaks to an audience at the “It Won’t Kill You to Talk About Death!” event in Portland, Oregon

Rabbi Ariel Stone accepts the Rev. Dr. Paul Smith Award from Sam Young and Zeena Regis

Sam Young, Rabbi Ariel Stone, Zeena Regis and Susan Prior

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