Redefining the Rabbinate: Women Rabbis in Israel and the United States

Throughout most of Jewish history, rabbis were undoubtedly men, as women were barred from this religious role altogether until the late twentieth century.^[1] Yet nowhere in Jewish law, halakha, are women explicitly banned from becoming rabbis. Gendered practices in Judaism have restricted women to household and familial duties and have deemed them ineligible to embark on rabbinic responsibilities or ordination. Among the three major Jewish movements, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, women have gradually been ordained as rabbis in both the United States and Israel, with the Orthodox tradition only recently accepting few women rabbis. Israel and the United States are important spaces for Jewish people, with more than three-quarters of Jews living in either of these countries today.^[2] This article will explore the histories and experiences of women rabbis in the United States and Israel. Gendered societal norms’ impact on halakhic discourse and the Jewish tradition have historically made it difficult for women to become rabbis, and even more difficult to gain respect among the Jewish people once they did. Moreover, diverging circumstances in the United States and Israel have caused women rabbis to adapt their services and individual religious practices differently within their distinct political and social worlds. In both Israel and the United States, women rabbis have redefined the rabbinate based on their respective challenges to create a new empowered rabbinical identity.

Women were prohibited from becoming rabbis for most of Jewish history due to their limited allowance to practice certain religious traditions. Halakhic discourse creates a distinct duality between men and women and establishes separate roles for these two genders. As a function of this division, men are given more religious power. Charlotte Fonrobert explains that these gender differentiations in the Jewish tradition create obligations and exemptions for men and women, respectively. Men are oftentimes obligated to participate in certain religious traditions that women are exempt from.^[3] Women, rather than participating in these activities, were instead designated to the role of wives, mothers, and homemakers who were subordinate to their husbands.^[4] However, the Talmud, the main text of Jewish law, never provides explicit reasoning for women’s exemption from these practices.^[5] Still, religious leaders found alternative means to rationalize these exemptions. For example, Proverbs 31:10–31 is employed to describe the ideal Jewish wife as predominant in the home, but still under the rule of her husband.^[6] The religious exemptions for women formed by halakha restricted their ability to practice the Jewish religion in its full capacity.

As a result of these limitations, women were then forbidden from participating in the traditions necessary to become a rabbi. Women could not attend public synagogue services, become leaders of community worship, nor publicly read from scriptures like the Torah.^[7] The Mishnah, or the Oral Torah, declares women exempt from time-bound mitzvot, including sukkah, shofar, tzitzit, and tefillin.^[8] In addition, women were denied education and disallowed from giving testimony under Jewish law. Therefore, the rabbinic position was restricted solely to men.^[9] Together, the exemptions and assumptions assumed by Jewish women made it nearly impossible for them to join the rabbinate. This would soon change as women gained further rights in other areas of their lives.

The inclusion of women in the rabbinate was not an outlandish idea. Reform Jewish women in the United States spearheaded the women’s ordination movement. Prior to the twentieth century, there was a general consensus that women were incapable of maintaining a family while successfully holding the position of rabbi, claiming that the identity of women as rabbis as well as wives and mothers would disrupt the gendered structure created by Judaism.^[10] Still, during the later stages of this period, Reform Judaism in the United States advocated for basic measures of equality among men and women in their traditions.^[11] This movement to include women in synagogue life incorporated better education for women, mixed choirs and seating in the synagogue, and the inclusion of women in a minyan, a group of Jewish individuals that must be present in order for religious worship to commence.^[12] These revisions to Reform practices allowed women to participate in rabbinic training without actually being ordained. Instead, they received a certificate to teach Judaism in schools.^[13] This step toward equality among men and women in the American Reform movement would become the foundation for an argument supporting women rabbis.

In the 1920s, Martha Neumark transformed the trajectory of the question regarding women in the rabbinate in American Reform Judaism. Neumark was a student at the Hebrew Union College (HUC), Reform Judaism’s rabbinical school, in 1921 when she requested to lead a high holiday service, as all men rabbinical students were required to do during rabbinic training.^[14] However, according to Jewish tradition this meant that Neumark must later be ordained. Standing HUC president Kaufman Kohler reasoned “if she is sent out to preach and completes the required course of study, she should be ordained.”^[15] This raised a difficult question in the Jewish community—is it more important to maintain Jewish tradition or accept modernity? Ultimately, despite long and rigorous debate within Reform Jewish leadership, Neumark was not ordained.^[16] However, the debate surrounding Neumark did reveal a new halakhic interpretation of women’s ordination that reflected the recent changes regarding gender equality in Reform Judaism.

In 1922, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform rabbinic organization, assembled to write responsa, or rabbinic commentaries, regarding the question of women’s ordination. At this conference, HUC Professor and Rabbi Jacob Lauterbach presented rabbinic leadership with his arguments against the ordination of women. Notably, Rabbi Lauterbach claims that allowing women in the rabbinate is “contrary to the very spirit of traditional Judaism which the rabbinate seeks to uphold and preserve.”^[17] The rabbi explains that “man and woman have each been assigned by the Torah certain spheres of activity… [with] woman’s activity…centered in the house.”^[18] Despite recent advancements to women’s equality allowing them to work in conventionally male professions, Rabbi Lauterbach argues that the rabbinic role is an all-encompassing position while women, as homemakers, do not have a vocation outside the home. Additionally, the rabbi rationalizes that women’s exemption from time-bound mitzvot and authoritative religious powers, written in the Torah and Midrash respectively, would inhibit them from the rabbinate. However, the CCAR answered in disagreement.^[19]

The CCAR responsum was generally in favor of the ordination of women as rabbis, with Rabbi David Neumark notably taking a strong stance against Rabbi Lauterbach. Rabbi Neumark first dissents by rejecting Rabbi Lauterbach’s claim that women’s religious exemptions limit their ability to become rabbis. This is an extraneous argument as the restrictions highlighted by Rabbi Lauterbach would not prohibit women from a role in the rabbinate in the modern and more equal Reform Judaism. Most importantly, however, Rabbi Neumark strongly rejects the notion that ordaining women as rabbis opposes traditional Judaism. The rabbi deems much of Rabbi Lauterbach’s statement invalid as he often references a traditional Judaism that is no longer practiced by the modern Reform movement.^[20] He reasons that “the rabbinate may help the women, and the women rabbis may help the rabbinate. You cannot treat the Reform rabbinate from the Orthodox point of view. Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy and Reform is Reform.”^[21] The Reform movement is autonomous from the Orthodox movement, so a claim that women rabbis are a break with traditional Judaism is an invalid argument, as Reform Judaism is not traditional Judaism.

This discussion revealed that the ordination of women as rabbis was never explicitly banned in halakha.^[22] However, even after this discussion, the HUC still dictated that “no changes should be made”^[23] to their college policy regarding the ordination of women. Despite the general responsum in favor of ordaining women rabbis, the motion eventually dissolved^[24] and no changes to the rabbinate were adopted for another half-century.^[25]

While the prior decision ultimately made little change in the long-standing debate over women’s ordination, the question was revisited by the Reform movement in the mid-twentieth century. Reform women’s groups in the 1950s and 1960s demanded ordination. More women held leadership positions in synagogues, especially as there was a shortage of rabbis at the time. Those in support of women’s ordination argued that women show strength and resilience in all aspects of life, making a rabbinical position no extra challenge.^[26] Barnett Bricker, President of the CCAR, argued that it was inappropriate to consider the Reform movement liberal while it still rejected women from the rabbinate.^[27] After continued debate, Sally Priesand was ordained by the Reform movement in 1972 as the first American woman rabbi, under the reasoning provided by the responsum debated a half-century earlier.^[28] Priesand’s ordination sparked change in the Conservative and Orthodox movements in the United States.

The Conservative movement in the United States took longer to adopt women’s ordination, but eventually made the decision following similar reasoning to the Reform movement. Succeeding Priesand’s milestone, there was intense debate in the Conservative community over changes to the Jewish tradition that women’s ordination might incite.^[29] Namely, religious leaders discussed similar topics to the Reform movement regarding a woman’s religious exemptions originated in traditional Judaism, such as serving as a wedding officiant or witness and the ability to be included in a minyan or lead religious services.^[30] More traditional leaders felt very strongly against the ordination of women as they believed it would allow women to “transgress the law.”^[31] Other Conservative Jews, particularly feminists, demanded equality with both Conservative men and the American Reform movement.^[32] Leaders of the American Conservative movement debated for over a decade after Priesand’s ordination until the first Conservative woman rabbi, Amy Eilberg, was ordained in 1985.^[33] The responsum leading to this decision cited similar reasoning to the Reform movement: halakhic principles are “influenced by time and place,”^[34] making women’s exemptions in traditional Judaism no longer relevant in modernity.^[35] At this point, both the American Reform and Conservative movements had differentiated themselves from the cultural norms created by traditional Orthodoxy and left American Jews questioning whether the Orthodox movement would soon make a similar decision.^[36]

Women’s ordination was not considered among the Orthodox movement in the United States until over thirty years after the first American woman rabbi was ordained. Sara Hurwitz, the first Orthodox woman rabba, another term for woman rabbi, was ordained in 2009. There are only a few Orthodox women rabbis in the United States today as this group is primarily accepted only among the Open Orthodoxy, the most liberal denomination of the Orthodox movement.^[37] Nevertheless, the ordination of Rabbi Hurwitz in 2009 signified a milestone in Jewish history when all three major movements of Judaism in the United States allowed women in the rabbinate.

The ordination of women in Israel trailed the United States by over twenty years due to Orthodox influence over the nation. Orthodox Judaism and the Israeli government are intertwined, meaning that Orthodox Jewish beliefs often command the views of the country.^[38] As the Orthodox movement does not support women’s ordination, this conviction has much influence over the debate on women rabbis in Israel. Eventually, Reform and Conservative movements in Israel began to ordain women rabbis. Israel’s first woman rabbi, Naamah Kelman, was ordained in the Reform movement in 1992. It is important to consider that the Reform and Conservative movements are much less recognized in Israel than in the United States, but they are the only movements ordaining women rabbis in the country. Therefore, women rabbis in Israel are often not respected as legitimate rabbis by many Israeli Jews.^[39] This presents a unique challenge for Israeli women rabbis who face the headwinds of the Orthodox movement’s pervasive gender roles.

Women in both modern-day Israel and the United States must transform the role of rabbi to coincide with their identity as a woman. The leadership role of a rabbi was structured around men. Thus, women rabbis across the board must define themselves as rabbis while, in some cases, still balancing Judaic and societal expectations of women as homemakers, wives, and mothers.^[40] The experiences of women rabbis are intersectional, depending on factors such as Jewish movement, nationality, sexual orientation, race, marital status, and parental status. Despite the differing identities of women rabbis, they all share the similar challenge of defying the customary roles of men and women in the Jewish tradition.

Israeli and American Orthodox women^[41] experience challenges authenticating their role as rabbis among their respective populations as minority members of pluralistic movements. These women have reshaped their rabbinate by first adopting a new label for their role: rabbah or rabba. Rabbah is the feminine version of the word rabbi.^[42] By creating a new name for themselves, rabbahs can redefine their rabbinic role to fit their own personal experiences.^[43] Moreover, there are other terms besides rabbi and rabbah that women rabbis have adopted, including maharat and rabbanit. This nomenclature is used by Orthodox women rabbis who wish to “render rabbi in the feminine”^[44] Nonetheless, these women use their titles “to show that they are masters of Jewish law.”^[45] Some rabbahs will also embrace this identity by adopting the use of religious items that are typically worn by men, such as a kippah, tefillin, and/or tallit.^[46] Throughout Jewish history, these religious items were used to create a covenant between man and God.^[47] When women assume these traditions themselves, they are able to both demonstrate their relationship with God and break down gender norms in Judaism. Furthermore, these items may also be worn with “feminine” colors or patterns and feminist symbols to emphasize femininity and minimize the male origins of these traditions.^[48] The rabbahs’ mission to eradicate gendered Jewish practices is exemplified by the integration of these traditional rituals, from which they were once limited, and titles into their daily lives.

While some Israeli women rabbis may desire to display their position in a public setting, they are sometimes asked or encouraged to hide their title as rabbi.^[49] This reinforces the claim that women rabbis are not well-received in certain Israeli communities. Oftentimes, even a rabbah’s feminine physical appearance may evoke discomfort in some.^[50] Modesty is an issue among women rabbis in both Israel and the United States, however, discussions over this subject are much more prevalent in current-day Israel.^[51] There is an interesting contradiction that stems from this issue. While women rabbis are expected to dress feminine to maintain gender norms, they are then criticized for their womanly appearance in religious settings.^[52] In essence, the discomfort surrounding women rabbis concerning both their titles and bodies highlights the impact of gender norms on their religious and daily lives, particularly in Israel.

Israeli women rabbis are also uniquely forced to combat the “national ethos that conceives Israeli society as masculine.”^[53] The gendered divide in Judaism is especially present in Israel, with Orthodox Judaism as the majority religion in the country. As previously mentioned, Israeli society is inherently masculine due to the strong influence of Orthodox Judaism, as well as militaristic.^[54] Israeli women rabbis have adapted their rabbinate to embrace femininity and womanhood. However, they must confront the additional challenge of an innately masculine society defined by Judaism.

The rabbinate has historically marginalized women, thus some American women rabbis have intertwined feminism with their religious practices to create a gender-inclusive space. As American Judaism is more accepting of pluralistic movements, women rabbis in the United States have adapted to the rabbinate by including feminism in their practices. This is not to say that Israeli women rabbis are not feminist, but most American women rabbis do not have to overcome the additional barrier of Orthodox influence before embracing feminist practices. These feminist changes range from rewriting Jewish texts to adapting pronoun use when referencing God. American women rabbis have included gender-neutral and female-inclusive poems and stories in their practices to reframe the historically patriarchal readings of Jewish scripture. Moreover, these rabbis have written the woman’s voice into stories traditionally told from a man’s perspective.^[55] In some cases, American women rabbis have decided not to succumb to “masculine imagery” when naming God.^[56] Women rabbis may refer to God with she/her/hers or gender-neutral pronouns.^[57]

There is still reluctance when it comes to women rabbis in the United States, even if it is not as significant as the hesitancy toward women rabbis in Israel. Rabbi Linda Targan, a Reform non-congregational rabbi working in Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, expressed that she has been turned away from performing life cycle services by more traditional families due to her being a woman rabbi. In one instance, a couple opted for a male rabbi to perform their wedding despite Targan’s familiarity with them. Rabbi Targan also expressed that some congregants were surprised by her wise rabbinical performance, despite her years of training and work as a rabbi.^[58] These doubts regarding the capabilities of women rabbis in the United States reflect the enduring impact of gender roles on the rabbinate despite the declaration of equality from the American Reform and Conservative movements.

American women rabbis have reclaimed certain sexed rituals, such as the mikveh, to align with more modern-day contexts. Jewish rituals divide the Jewish population by gender. Rituals involving men, such as circumcision, allow them to form a stronger covenant with God while women’s rituals, like the mikveh, connect women’s bodies to fertility and motherhood. The mikveh is a Jewish ritual in which women purify themselves in a sacred bath after menstruation or childbirth. This ritual only occurs during the fertile period of a woman’s life, while rituals like circumcision for men last for the entire lifetime, emphasizing the woman’s role as a mother and wife.^[59] American women rabbis have reframed and created new rituals to recognize the entire life of a woman, rather than just her fertile period. These rituals may celebrate a pregnancy or help a woman heal from divorce, sexual assault, or a miscarriage. For example, the mikveh has been repurposed by some as a method of healing from traumatic life events.^[60] American women rabbis have adapted both the rabbinate and Jewish rituals to include more well-rounded and inclusive rituals for women that celebrate their entire womanhood.

Gendered norms reinforced by halakhic discourse in the Jewish tradition have compelled both Israeli and American women rabbis to adjust the traditional roles of rabbis and prove their validity in this religious position. These women have thus created an empowering Jewish experience that redefines women in Judaism. Scholars and women rabbis themselves argue that the most impactful way to make further progress is to support and uplift women rabbis. This essay will conclude with guiding words from Pamela Nadell: “The general community can help by showing a willingness to accept women as their spiritual leaders.”^[61]