Damned if She Does, Damned if She Doesn't
Why an Orthodox institute's decision to ordain female rabbis isn't as revolutionary as it sounds.
Last week, the Jerusalem Post ran an article announcing that for the first time, an Orthodox institution, the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, would begin ordaining women rabbis. Predictably, the decision was both lauded as a historical moment and instantly denounced as evidence that the institute's founder, Rabbi David Hartman, isn't really Orthodox, anyway—though he was ordained at the modern Orthodox flagship, Yeshiva University, and his institute runs two Orthodox schools in Jerusalem...more
1 comment:
from http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2008/01/non-male-non-orthodox-non-rabbis.html
"There was an article in The Jerusalem Post a few weeks ago announcing that the Hartman Institute has decided to start ordaining women as Orthodox rabbis (link). I did not comment on it initially because it seems like something was missing in that article. From what I read, the Hartman Institute is training men and women to be Jewish educators. That is nothing particularly controversial. However, at the end of the program they will be ordaining the participants as rabbis. Basically, according to the article, the institute seems to be just giving the title away without any training in the primary rabbinic role of ruling on halakhic issues. What I see is not that the women will also be rabbis but that not even the men will be. ...
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