Rabbi Shafran’s Mansplaining About Female Clergy Misses the Mark

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By Megan Shub October 23, 2017

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

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