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In March 2009, Rabbi Avi Weiss, head OS an Orthodox synagogue 01850 families in Riverdale, Bronx, N.Y., stood before his congregation to confer the authority of the clergy on Sara Hun~'itz, who had been studying with him for five years. Weiss identified her as a `maharat," a Hebrew acronym of his invention for Manhiga Hi/Lhati: Rukhanit Twanit, meaning "leader.' But in January 2010, in response to questions about the title, he announced that she was a "rabba," Weiss wanted to make his intent absolutely clear: that he
Orthodox Jewish organizations in America had been mostly silent about Hurwitz when she had been classified as a "maharat," but as soon as she was identified as a "rabba," they responded with outrage. Although Reform Jews ordained the first female rabbi, Sally Priesand, in 1972, and Conservative Jews ordained Amy Eilberg as their first in 1985, the Orthodox community has insisted that only men could be rabbis. Agudath Israel of America described Hurwitz's ordination as "a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition" and protested that "any congregation with a woman in a rabbinical position of any sort cannot be considered Orthodox." The Rabbinical Council of America resolved that "we cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title." According to Rabbi Herschel Schacter, a respected Yeshiva University professor who died last March, women's ordination is such a fundamental violation of Jewish law that it is yehareg ve'alya'avor. i.e., Jews should choose death rather than permit it. Weiss stopped ordaining "rabbas" shortly after the fracas, but the school he founded in 2009, Yeshivat Maharat, continues to train women to be "maharats," and its first three female graduates were ordained last June. Hurwitz, the dean there, still uses the term "rabba."
Hurwitz's story has been repeated in many different religious communities in the United States in recent decades. As growing numbers of Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim women demand the authority to serve as religious leaders, they confront scorn and condemnation. In 2000, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution arguing that women should no longer be allowed to serve as pastors. Since the Southern Baptists do not have a centralized hierarchy, the resolution...