Women’s Role in Modern Orthodoxy
Tamar Snyder writing in The New York Jewish Week:
The recent controversy surrounding Riverdale Rabbi Avi Weiss’ decision to change Sara Hurwitz’s title from maharat to rabba “has been more about the title than really about what we’re doing,” [Dina] Najman [rosh kehila at Kehilat Orach Eliezer] says. And in debating titles, the issue of Orthodox spiritual leadership “gets gender-fied,” she says.
“The bigger picture here is that we really just want to do the work” of building and shaping Orthodox communities, she says. “It needs to be understood that [Orthodox women] are doing this in the spirit of learning, for the sake of heaven. These women, regardless of title have remained true to their mesorah [tradition], the process of halacha and halachic observances.”
… For the half-dozen Orthodox women in spiritual leadership roles in New York and beyond, lost amid the squabble over titles has been a true understanding of the day-to-day work they have been doing and continue to undertake on behalf of the communities they serve.