Rabbi Shafran’s Mansplaining About Female Clergy Misses the Mark
Image by robert kalfus
Dear Editor,
I’m admittedly less versed than Avi Shafran in Jewish theology and how it dictates religious administration, but I do take issue with his argument that women should be excluded from religious leadership on the grounds that this desire is borne from “external” influence. Are the considerable number of Jewish women who feel a calling to religious vocation “external?” It’s interesting what a man says when he feels entitled to speak on women’s behalf.
Shafran implies that allowing women to become rabbis would not fulfill the same “urgent Jewish goal” that justified female education, but I argue that — as long as he hopes for upcoming generations of religiously and socially engaged jews — he is incorrect.
Megan Shub
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
