Vanessa L. Ochs (born November 2, 1953) is an American scholar of religion at the University of Virginia, an ordained rabbi and an important figure in the fields of Jewish feminism and Jewish ritual. She is a member of the Jewish Studies Program at the University, where she teaches courses in Judaism, the anthropology of religion, and spiritual writing. Ochs' writing was recognized by a Creative Writing Fellowship through the National Endowment for the Arts and she is the winner of a National Jewish Book Award in the category Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice for Inventing Jewish Rituals.