Women in Judaism: Jewish women come to the fore in Riverdale

By Kate Pastor

No place is women’s evolving role in Judaism more evident than in Riverdale.

Over the last few years, women have sprouted up at the heads of congregations across the spectrum of religious practice, taking on roles that would have once been forbidden.

Linda Shriner- Cahn, spiritual leader of Congregation Tehillah, is currently undergoing training to become a rabbi at The Academy of Jewish Religion in Riverdale. After a two-year search, Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale chose Elizabeth Stevens, a woman, as its new cantor. And then there is Sara Hurwitz, a newly named Maharat, or “leader in Jewish religious law, spiritual matters, and Torah” at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. She and Rabbi Avi Weiss have together opened a leadership school for women who want to follow her lead called Yeshivat Maharat.

None of this would have seemed possible only a generation ago.

What women’s historic role in Jewish religion has been is debatable, but females have always taken more discreet positions in Jewish congregations than men in practical terms.

According to Maharat Hurwitz, Jewish law only prohibits women from taking on a handful of religious tasks she still abstains from, but provides no basis for excluding half the population from religious positions.

That view has increasingly found its way into local congregations, where women are evermore likely to play a formidable role.

Growing up attending an Orthodox yeshiva, Ms. Shriner- Cahn said she could never have pictured the day she would lead a congregation.

“They told me I could be called to the Torah for my bat mitzvah and it would basically be a one shot. And I basically said ‘thank you but no thank you.’ That’s when I was a feminist,” she said.

What she’s done since, she said, has more to do with taking the natural next steps in her spiritual life than making an ideological statement.

The same goes for Maharat Hurwitz, who comfortably calls herself rabbi in rabbinic emergencies such as when she shows up at a hospital, but forgoes the title at temple. She says that within the Orthodox movement are people to the left of her who are disappointed they can’t call her rabbi because of her gender, and to the right, people who think she has too much power for a woman. She is not so concerned with titles, she said, and is instead focused on undertaking a leadership role once off-limits.

The opportunity has spurred her, along with Rabbi Weiss, to open a rabbinical school of sorts for women who want to follow in her footsteps. Located on the Upper West Side, it is the first of its kind in the country.

Women there, too, say they are simply walking through the door opened by Maharat Hurwitz, not trying to blaze trails. They just happen to represent a growing trend that, in some cases, would not be possible without them.

“In some areas Riverdale represents the broader universe,” said Blu Greenburg, a Riverdale resident and author of On Women & Judaism: A View From Tradition and other books on Judaism. “But in the Orthodox Community I think Riverdale has been a pace setter.”

For that, she said, a good deal of the credit goes to Riverdale’s male religious leaders.

Rabbi Weiss, in addition to ordaining Maharat Hurwitz, invited a women’s prayer group created by a Riverdale resident to start meeting inside the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Previously it had been relegated to the women’s living rooms, she said.

Rabbi Jonathan I. Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center, Ms. Greenberg said, was the first Orthodox rabbi to employ a “Yoetzet Halacha,” giving women the credential required to answer certain spiritual questions. And while RJC still does not welcome women’s prayer groups, both now host girls’ coming of age celebrations, or bat mitzvahs, when they turn 12, Ms. Greenberg said.

Things may seem to be moving quickly or “in the blink of an eye” in the context of the Jews’ long history, Ms. Greenberg says — the last few decades have certainly seen the pace quicken — but Maharat Hurwitz views things differently.

The first woman was ordained in America in 1972, she said, but that was only after more than a century of effort.

And, at least according to some, there’s still a long road ahead.

This is part of the November 5, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.