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Danya Ruttenberg (born February 6, 1975) is an American rabbi, editor, and author. Her family attended a Reform synagogue in Chicago, and she described herself as having been atheist around that time. Ruttenberg later became a part of the Conservative movement within Judaism. She was named one of The Jewish Week's "36 Under 36" in 2010 (36 most influential leaders under age 36), and the same year was named one of the top 50 most influential women rabbis by The Jewish Daily Forward. When she was in college her mother died of breast cancer, and Ruttenberg reconsidered religion, practiced Jewish mourning rituals, which she said allowed her to "make friends with Judaism, to be open to it"; in 2008 she published a memoir of her spiritual awakening titled "Surprised by God: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Religion" (Beacon Press). This memoir was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. She was ordained in 2008 by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.