Deborah Bodin Coden is the rabbi of Beth Chai in Bethesda, Maryland, ordained in 1997 from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Deborah states, "I didn’t set out to be an author. Although I was an English major at University of Michigan, I never took a creative writing class. But during rabbinical school, I took a class on writing modern midrash, or Biblically-based stories. I loved it! And that got me started. My first book, The Seventh Day, was published twenty years ago. Since then, I’ve been lucky to have over 20 more books published. I’ve won a National Jewish Book award, had several books chosen as PJ Library titles," and recently won the 2025 Sydney Taylor Gold Medal for her title, An Etrog from Across the Sea, co-written with Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, published by Kar-Ben Publishing.
Deborah and Kerry Olitzky are working on a new picture book called Cayla's Cookies by Relevant Publishers LLC coming 2025.
