Rabbi Carole Meyers (1957-2007) was the first woman in Southern California to lead a congregation full-time. Meyers was ordained in 1983 by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and spent three years as assistant rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. She became the rabbi of Temple Sinai of Glendale in 1986, when she was 29. She resigned in 2001, and died in 2007 of bone cancer. Posthumously, a book of her sermons was published, titled Leaning on God: Sermons (2018). She first became interested in becoming a rabbi after her father died when she was 13 and her stepfather died when she was 19, and the rituals and community support of the synagogue helped her through her grief.