Reform Women Rabbis Being Heard

In the midst of much activity in Israel in the ongoing push to ensure that women are not silenced or made invisible in newspaper media or public advertising, the celebration of a Reform woman rabbi winning a Supreme Court case to receive public funding, and the ongoing travails of the Women of the Wall seeking the right to pray in peace at the Kotel – the Western Wall in Jerusalem – there is much to write about these days about women and Judaism.  And there is plenty to say about female leadership in Jewish community, both lay and professional.

Launched less than a month ago, Kol Isha: Reform Women Rabbis Speak Out, is a new blog that provides a new vehicle for Women Rabbis to reflect on their own experiences as female clergy, and reflect on these larger issues that affect women’s’ experience in the wider Jewish world.

Kol Isha is Hebrew for ‘Voice of a Woman’.  It is a contested concept intraditional Jewish law, whereby a man cannot hear the voice of a woman, but even in traditional circles there is much debate as to the specific times and contexts to which this precept applies. Is it at all times, just in prayer, only for certain categories of prayer, or just when singing, for example. Among progressive Jews, equality of genders has overridden this precept, as it has in many contemporary societies.

Why just Reform Women Rabbis? The blog was launched as a project of the Women’s Rabbinic Network – an auxiliary of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the official body representing Reform Rabbis in the USA.

The first blog was posted on June 3rd – the precise date of the ordination of the first woman Rabbi in the USA, Sally Priesand.  Sally guest posted the first blog.  There are about 30 women Rabbis now providing daily postings, many of whom are blogging for the first time.  Just as with this blog, we Rabbis who blog have found that this medium provides an effective way of getting beyond the borders of our own local communities, sharing our voices and reflections on Jewish wisdom, culture, spirituality, and life with an audience that is literally global.  I know from the stats on this blog, that I have readers from South Africa, Israel, Russia, Argentina, Great Britain, Spain, as well as from all over the USA.  I also know from comments and private email correspondence that I have both Jewish and non-Jewish readers.  I’ve met people who have attended programs that I’ve run in the community who have told me that they came to their first Jewish event with me after many years of no explicit Jewish connection, after having read my blog for several months.  And I’ve had individuals reach out to me with pastoral needs online, in response to something that I wrote that they found on my blog.

So, what are our women Rabbis writing about?  Well, go and take a look for yourself.  But among the topics covered in these past couple of weeks, there are reflections on body image, relating to our teenage girls, balancing work and family life, pregnancy and miscarriage, supporting a sick child, leaving congregational positions, being a chaplain to the prison population, and several reflections on 40 years of women in the Rabbinate.

While most women who are Rabbis will tell you that, in the work they do in their communities, they are ‘Rabbis’ and not ‘Women Rabbis’, there is no question that women have transformed the face of the rabbinate in more than just its appearance.  Just looking at the topics above, this is clear.  In being true to the essence of who we are, we cannot leave any one piece of our identities behind, and our gender informs how we live in this world, what we see and experience, and how we relate to others.

Forty years on, we celebrate the place of women in the Rabbinate, we reflect on the journey and where we still hope to go, and we share our experiences and insights.