Sephardic Leader Says No to Women in College
Hardline: Shas leader Shalom Cohen, right, confers with late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in 2000 photo. Image by Getty images
The new spiritual leader of the Sephardic Orthodox Shas movement said women should not pursue academic studies.
Rabbi Shalom Cohen said in an official letter published Monday on the haredi Orthodox website Kikar HaShabbat that women’s participation in academic pursuits, including in haredi colleges, is a violation of Jewish law. It was Cohen’s first official ruling since assuming his position.
Cohen, the president of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, in April succeeded Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who died in October. Yosef’s daughter, Adina Bar-Shalom, in 2001 founded the Haredi College of Jerusalem, an institution supported by her late father.
“Our rabbis, the sages of Israel, unconditionally opposed academic study and even in the Haredi colleges, since a significant number of professors are university graduates and do not uphold the pure religious worldview on which the girls were raised,” Cohen wrote.
“In addition, the material in the colleges is based on research and scientific methods that contravene the Torah. Therefore, students should not even consider going to learn academic studies in any framework, since this is not the way of the Torah.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
