Aviel Barclay [SEP] sex or gender
Aviel Barclay
Aviel Barclay (born 1969) is a Canadian female "sofer" (Jewish scribe). On October 6, 2003, she became the first woman to be traditionally trained and certified as a Jewish scribe, an occupation held by men in the Orthodox tradition. She completed her first Torah scroll in fall 2010 under the auspices of the Kadima Women's Torah Project in Seattle, Washington. She is the subject of the 2005 television documentary "Soferet".
Born to a Christian family in Prince George,
scribe, Linda Coppleson, Irma Penn, Rabbi Hanna Klebansky, Julie Seltzer, and Aviel Barclay. The lead scribe (or "soferet") on the project was Shoshana Gugenheim. Gugenheim said that "it was important to me that there would be other women scribes". The work of the scribes was checked by Jen Taylor Friedman, who created a Scroll of Esther and was the first woman to scribe any part of the Torah in modern times. When the pages were finished, the parchment panels were further checked and