This week I read Rachel Rosenthal’s open letter to Rabbi Willig expressing her frustration and anger about his views on women learning Talmud. I have sympathy for Ms. Rosenthal’s frustration and agree with her that it is in everyone’s best interest to have smart, educated observant Jewish women. But Rabbi Willig’s main point was that…
Mainstream Orthodoxy has been taking pains to publicize its disapproval of partnership minyanim, Orthodox prayer groups where women lead some of the prayers and read from the Torah. Yeshiva University threatened to withhold ordination of a graduating student who held a partnership minyan in his home. Large, leading Orthodox institutions like the Orthodox Union and…
(JTA) — If it wasn’t clear before, it should be abundantly clear now: The Orthodox establishment will not sanction so-called partnership minyans, and it’s willing to go to the mat to fight them. In recent weeks, a flurry of articles by leading Orthodox rabbis and scholars have taken aim at the growing phenomenon of partnership…
The rabbinical school of Yeshiva University, previously said to be withholding ordination from a student who held a partnership minyan in his home, now says it will grant the student ordination. “An agreement has been reached and the student will be receiving Semikha,” Y.U. spiritual leader Rabbi Yosef Blau told the Forward in an email,…
The rabbinical school of Yeshiva University is withholding the ordination of a student who held a partnership minyan for his wife in their home. Rabbi Menachem Penner, acting dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, or RIETS, sent a letter to the student ordering him not to participate in partnership minyans “nor create a…
British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis called on Orthodox synagogues to ban partnership minyan services, where women can lead services and read from the Torah. Mirvis said in a message sent to rabbinic leaders Wednesday that the services were “not something that can take place within our synagogues,” the Jewish Chronicle reported. “I know that you…
As a rule, my husband and I don’t pray in non-egalitarian settings (or, at the very least, in ones that don’t count women in a minyan). So while I have been following the progress of partnership minyanim with respect and interest for a number of years, I hadn’t participated in one on a Shabbat morning…
The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World By Elana Maryles Sztokman University Press of New England, 288 pages, $85 A few years ago, a friend announced that he intended to start a “Kiddush club” at our synagogue. “Our shul needs more of a social scene,” he declared, “and some high-quality single malt…
100% of profits support our journalism
