Tagged Maharat

10 years after the founding of the first Orthodox school to train female clergy, what’s actually changed?

Rabbanit Jenna Englender dances with the Torah during her graduation ceremony from Yeshivat Maharat in New York, June 17, 2019. (Shulamit Seidler-Feller/Maharat)
December 18, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Growing up in a Modern Orthodox community in South Africa, Sara Hurwitz never imagined that she would one day become a clergy member. The Conservative and Reform movements have been ordaining female rabbis for decades. But in the Orthodox world, women are barred from many… Read more »

Orthodox Union asks women clergy to change their titles

The Orthodox Union is asking Maharat Ruth Friedman, left, shown at her graduation from Yeshivat Maharat in 2013, to change her title in order to comply with a rabbinic ruling that bars female clergy. (Joe Winkler)
May 21, 2017 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Following its rabbinic ruling prohibiting synagogues from hiring female clergy, the Orthodox Union is pressuring synagogues that have hired the women to change their titles. In February, the Orthodox Union, an umbrella Orthodox Jewish group, issued a Jewish legal ruling by seven rabbis that bars women… Read more »