Source: Cleveland Jewish News
http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2004/05/12/news/world/platin0512.txt
On May 11, 2004 Cleveland Jewish News ran a JTA article that reported, "With hundreds of rabbis, community activists and synagogue-goers in the audience, the excitement was palpable as Brazil's first female rabbi took to the bimah on Shabbat. Never before had a female spiritual leader been invited to the bimah at the 2,000-family Congregacao Israelita Paulista, Brazil's largest synagogue, affiliated with both the Reform and the Conservative movements. But Rabbi Sandra Kochmann's appearance on the bimah was one of many signs of change at the recent Conference of Jewish Communities of the Americas, perhaps heralding a new Jewish era in Latin America. 'There was electricity in the air,' said Rabbi Uri Regev, executive director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, of Kochmann's appearance on the bimah. In late 2003, Kochmann took the post of assistant rabbi at Rio de Janeiro's largest synagogue, the 1,000-family Associacao Religiosa Israelita, also known as ARI. She was the only woman among 25 rabbis at the April 29-May 2 conference in Sao Paulo...Some 350 people from 50 Reform and Conservative institutions across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Canada, the United States and Israel attended the conference, debating topics such as Jewish education, intermarriage, small communities, the role of women in Jewish community, human rights, youth, Jewish outreach and homosexual Jews."