Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Did You Catch The Woman Rabbi Cameo On Saturday Night Live?

Did you catch the song “Holes” on Saturday Night Live this weekend, hosted by Adam Sandler? The musical sketch focused on the fact that clothing has holes in it (arm holes, leg holes, etcetera,) and is a pretty good cautionary tale about when people of one gender and race combination, who represent a tiny segment of the human experience, are allowed to have a monopoly on mainstream comedy.

But ninety-nine seconds into the sketch, performed by SNL regulars Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney with Sandler, a thrilling thing happens: a woman in a skirt-suit and a tallit appears, as the singers burst into a lyric about a rabbi.

It’s about a millisecond-long appearance in the middle of a true comedic nadir for a late night show. But it also matters that for hundreds of years the word rabbi has conjured a picture of an elderly white man with a long beard, and now, millions of people have seen the word associated with a woman.

The Orthodox movement continues to debate whether women can hold rabbinic positions. The Conservative movement ordains female rabbis but maintains, in some communities, women’s ritual disenfranchisement. Even in the Reform movement, the historic leader in female ordination, women rabbis report experiencing continual institutional and social discrimination.

And on the most watched Saturday Night Live episode this season, a rabbi looked like a young woman, sporting ritual items and a facial expression that said, “I had a bar mitzvah and a baby naming today already.”

Representation matters. Even Judaism, you might say, has holes.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 during this critical time.

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

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.