Sara Hurwitz, ebrea ortodossa, ha ricevuto il titolo di  morateinu presso l'Hebrew Institute of Riverdale.

Nei blog ebraici si è parlato di lei come di una quasi-rabbina o di una donna che, pur non avendo ufficialmente il titolo è come se fosse un rabbino.

Riverdale Press ha pubblicato un interessante profilo su di lei. Riporto alcuni paragrafi che trovo particolarmente interessanti.

Su Youtube c'è, suddivisa in tre parti, tutta la Conferral Ceremony.

"Sometimes I feel like there is a cement ceiling, let alone a glass ceiling," Ms. Hurwitz said in a recent interview. "And other times I feel like there are opportunities waiting for me and it's just a matter of me taking hold of them."

The one-time congregational intern now holds one of the highest leadership positions possible for a woman in her Orthodox synagogue.

As Ms. Hurwitz explained, the title, which will be given to her by Rabbi Weiss, is in many ways synonymous with that of a rabbi, but it denotes a major difference: its holder is a woman and she will not be on equal footing with the synagogue's rabbis. Even with the new designation, she is not permitted to read from the Torah or perform weddings or bar mitzvahs. She will also not count toward the formation of a minyan - the quorum of 10 men needed for a prayer service.

Ms. Hurwitz finds herself conflicted over the disparity.

"I completely ascribe to the Orthodox movement and accept it, but I still grapple with the restrictions on women," she said.

http://www.riverdalepress.com/atf.php?sid=3437¤t_edition=2008-03-13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Il  Register of Good Practices of Language Preservation dell'Unesco ha inserito il Winnipeg Women's Reading Circle nella sua lista, dando cosi' riconoscimento ufficiale a questa attività curata in prevalenza da donne.

 

 

The Reading Circle was started in the wake of the rediscovery of Yiddish women’s literature at a local library event in Winnipeg. In the circle, female members of the local Yiddish community meet regularly once a month to read and discuss texts by female Yiddish authors. Since the start of this library event, the Reading Circle activities have resulted in the revitalization of Yiddish language competence in its members.

“It’s taken a few years to get listed,” says Jeanette Block, one of the reading circle’s founders. “Ours is one of just eight groups and the only Yiddish group listed on the registry so far. The registry is getting one million hits a month.”

Block notes that Yiddish women’s reading circles have a long tradition in Winnipeg.

 While Block notes that there are other Yiddish reading circles in the United States and Canada, what sets the Winnipeg group apart is that it meets in a permanent location. She also believes that an anthology the group published two years ago was an important factor in its being listed by UNESCO.

The book, Arguing with the Storm, is a compilation of short stories written in Yiddish by female authors and translated into English by several ladies in the group. Block’s daughter, Rhea Tregebov, a creative writing teacher at the University of British Columbia, served as the anthology’s editor.

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16683&Itemid=86

 

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Un profilo molto interessante. Una donna ebrea che, a Gerusalemme, si prodiga per rendere la città intera più pulita e verde per tutti i suoi abitanti. 

Positivo che una donna sia leader in campo ambientalista in un contesto in cui i vari integralismi religiosi fanno a gara a chi mostra le attitudini più misogine.

She has been working as an activist for 13 years spearheading campaigns to keep Jerusalem of Gold, green, and was recently elected to the new position in politics.

As founder of Sustainable Jerusalem, Tsur has helped organize 75 green groups together under one umbrella. Through it, she's taught other activists how to lobby in the government, and how to hone in on specific issues worth fighting for.

 Some of the projects she'll be organizing include establishing an environmental lobby. "There is nothing more universal than local issues,"

"The Jerusalem forest shouldn't be depleted anymore - it's a quarter of its original size. Hopefully we will create a continuous park along the railway line from Emek Refaim to Malha. Residents wanted it, and we have committed to it. It runs through rich, poor, Jewish, Arab neighborhoods and answers a real need for quality open space," she declared.

"We need to think about not only cleanliness, but what happens to our garbage, about recycling. I'm going to see what's been planned, what's being done. I don't see why we shouldn't be recycling much, much more," Tsur maintained.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404730047&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles^l2517&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Profiles&

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I also admire the rabbi who leads the Hebrew Institute, Avi Weiss, who is recognized as a great trailblazer within modern Orthodoxy. Weiss is the founder and president of a rabbinical seminary, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, which is dedicated to intellectual openness, including the expansion of women's role in Judaism. The seminary is an alternative to Yeshiva University, increasingly seen as dogmatic and insular. Hurwitz studied privately for six years with Weiss, and it is he who devised the new title.

Names do matter, and the title "rabbi" -- as with "priest" for Catholics -- brings with it a high level of respect and awe that "Maharat," let's face it, does not replicate. "Rabbi" is the pinnacle of Judaic authority. Many people regard their rabbi as a mediator of sorts between themselves and God. Children and adults alike look up to their rabbi as a role model. Eventually, I suppose, "Maharat" will cease to sound silly and gobbledy-gooky, and we will accept it as a legitimate title. But it will continue to belittle the women who hold it -- and, by extension, all women -- because it will always signify "she who is not fit to be called 'rabbi.'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leora-tanenbaum/a-rabbi-is-not-a-rabbi-in_b_189767.html

Yesterday, the opening of Yeshivat Mahara"t, a new training program for Orthodox Jewish women to become spiritual leaders was announced. It's a big step, but women may still be barred from becoming rabbis. The school was founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss of New York's Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, who is an advocate for the expansion of women's rights in Orthodox Judaism

http://jezebel.com/5256244/new-school-for-orthodox-jewish-women-opens-but-will-they-be-rabbis

Rabbi Avi Weiss has launched a yeshiva to train Orthodox women to "function as rabbis."

Known as Yeshiva Maharat, the school is expected to be up and running in September and will offer women part-time instruction in all areas of Jewish law, pastoral training and a synagogue internship.

 http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/21/1005336/avi-weiss-launches-yeshiva-to-train-orthodox-women-to-function-as-rabbis

A number of advocates for the rights of Orthodox women have been steadily pushing for several decades to expand the education and role of women in Orthodoxy. One major trend in recent years has been a greater emphasis on Jewish education for Orthodox women through such programs as the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, which has offered intensive programs in Talmud study for women. Women have also taken on more high-profile instructional roles at Jewish day schools and some have taken official spiritual roles within synagogues. Though there have been only a few reported instances, some women have even been privately ordained as Orthodox rabbis.

Blu Greenberg, a leading Orthodox feminist, praised the yeshiva initiative as a “path-breaking and revolutionary” extension of long-standing efforts to advance the role of women in Orthodox society. She said that the title of “rabbi” might have been preferable, but added, “There’s nothing like facts on ground. The power of one model or 10 models is worth more than a thousand discussions or arguments on the subject.”

 http://www.forward.com/articles/106320/

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087780.html

 http://www.jofa.org/pdf/JOFA%20Press%20Release.pdf

http://www.jofa.org/pdf/Responsa%20on%20Ordination%20of%20Women.pdf

 

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You know from the wide coverage of this week's American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., that there were several surprises in the statements delivered from the podium.

We expected some surprises. What I, for one, did not expect -- given how the Jewish community has evolved in the past 30 years -- was the astonishing fact that of the 77 speakers listed for this year's plenaries and on-the-record press schedule, only two were women. Two!! You can see for yourself at aipac.org. And one of these was Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). 

When I began to observe and report on the American Jewish scene more than 30 years ago, I was alert to how few women were asked to speak at national meetings and to express their opinions in the Jewish press (except on obvious gender-related issues).

I was struck in those days by the absence of women leading major American Jewish organizations -- those big, co-ed "legacy" institutions. But this is 2009, for heaven's sake.

For any conference organizer or program planner to claim that he or she doesn't know of enough qualified speakers or presenters is absurd. Years ago, I would hear, "Just give me a list."

Well, the lists have existed for a while now. The organization Advancing Women Professionals in the Jewish Community, the Talent Bank that Lilith magazine has maintained for many years and the faculty roster of every university are logical places to start. 

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=10692&SectionID=31&SubSectionID=&S=1

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Participants also flew Israeli flags in which the blue was replaced by the rainbow colours associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people’s movement.

Members of a multicultural dance troupe joined in with the Ga’ava entourage, some of them picking up its flags to wave, swelling its ranks to about 70, said Abby Shawn, chair of QJC’s human rights committee, who rode on the Ga’ava float.

This was the first time QJC participated in the parade, but Shawn said this decision was made before the controversy over the anti-apartheid group began. “Congress has a history of protecting and promoting the rights of gay people,” she said. “We are very pleased with the way the organizers responded us, giving us a place so near the front…The organizers distanced themselves from QAIA and did not allow them to hijack the celebration to disseminate their propaganda.  They did their best to pre-empt any type of distortion.”

QJC was also invited to a VIP cocktail reception before the parade, she added.

She also felt the spectators “responded to us very well; there was absolutely no hostility.”

Elsewhere in the parade, one man held signs reading in French “5 countries = the death penalty/ Iran, Sudan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen,” an apparent critique of the intolerance of homosexuality by certain Islamic regimes.

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17481&Itemid=86

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Despite notable gains for women in the past year, a Forward survey of 75 major American Jewish communal organizations found that fewer than one in six are run by women, and those women are paid 61 cents to every dollar earned by male leaders.

The numbers are especially striking when compared with the overall composition of the Jewish communal work force. Women comprise about 75% of those employed by federations, advocacy and social service organizations, and religious and educational institutions, but occupy only 14.3% of the top positions. Of the 11 female leaders identified in this survey, three are in interim roles.

When asked to put these numbers into historical context, Shulamit Bahat, who for decades was in the executive leadership of the American Jewish Committee, said she was “rather stunned” by the statistics. “I thought greater gains had been made,” said Bahat, currently CEO of Beit Hatfutsot of America.

Gorovitz, the first woman to break the glass ceiling in the federation system, concurred, crediting the women who mentored her during her own career. “It is incumbent on us to ensure that we have diversity in our professional ranks, that we are mentoring all our staff equally, so that we have positive role models,” she said in an interview just a few weeks into her new job. “Unfortunately, sometimes the Jewish community is not great at doing this.”

http://forward.com/articles/118323/

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Dopo la precedente ricerca del 1994 il Jewish Board of Deputies ha voluto fotografare la situazione attuale delle donne ebree nel Regno Unito. Dal lavoro di ricerca è venuta fuori un'analisi attenta e puntuale delle aspirazioni, del vissuto e delle istanze della parte femminile della comunità ebraica britannica.

Potete leggere il documento nella sua interezza nel link che riporto.

http://www.boardofdeputies.org.uk/file/ConnectionContinuityCommunity.pdf

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Twenty-nine mostly Reform and Conservative rabbis in the greater Toronto area have signed an open letter to senior Israeli diplomats in Canada expressing deep concern about recent events involving two women who were wearing tallitot at the Kotel.

The letter to Miriam Ziv, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, and Amir Gissin, Israel’s consul general for Toronto and Western Canada, appears as an advertisement in this week’s CJN. It refers to the Nov. 18 arrest of Nofrat Frenkel for wearing a tallit and carrying a Torah, and to the Jan. 5 police questioning and fingerprinting of Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall, which has organized women’s prayer services at the Kotel for the past two decades.

Frenkel and Hoffman were informed that they had violated an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that, citing concerns about public safety, denied women the right to read from the Torah in the regular women’s section of the wall. The ruling resulted in the designation of a nearby site, Robinson’s Arch, as the place for women to pray as a group with a Torah scroll.

“If this kind of police action had taken place in any other country, the world Jewish community would have accused the state of anti-Semitism and violation of basic human rights,” the rabbis wrote.

They ask what steps the Israeli government will take so that “all Jews will be welcome to worship according to their own tradition” at the Kotel.

 

“We thought this was such an important issue that we needed to put an ad out there,” said Rabbi Wise. “People need to be aware of it, and become involved.

“A woman was arrested,” he stressed. “For wearing a tallit. For us, in the context of pluralism and women’s rights… that was like a punch in the stomach.”

 http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18479&Itemid=86

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It's time to admit that Israel faces an emboldened movement against women’s equality, not a just a series of isolated incidents.

For more than three years, Israeli feminists have been campaigning to end gender segregation on publicly funded bus lines that serve the ultra-Orthodox as well as the general community. Bus segregation has arisen only in the last 10 years. Women sitting where they wished on such buses have been subject to verbal and physical harassment by male passengers, with bus drivers doing nothing.

At Jerusalem's Western Wall, the organization Women of the Wall has been fighting for equal rights to pray for 20 years. Women who chose to wear a kipah and/or tallit, and pray out loud and read from a Torah scroll, have been given a designated, and many would say, inferior place to worship near but not at the Western Wall itself.

The Israel Religious Action Center says it will soon be releasing a study that has found instances of medical clinics seeing male and female patients on separate days, post offices with separate lines, stores that have separate entrances, and funeral homes that forbid men and women to sit together.

Otherwise, friends of Israel will watch in horror along with a majority of Israelis as aspects of Israeli life become eerily reminiscent of its most backward neighbors. We can’t let that happen.

http://www.ncjw.org/content_4150.cfm?navID=218

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The leading Modern Orthodox rabbinic association has adopted an official position against the ordination of women while also encouraging the creation of “halakhically and communally appropriate professional opportunities” for female scholars.

The resolution cites “commitment to sacred continuity” in stating that the organization “cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title.” But it stops short of sanctioning or expelling members who violate the policy – a move being urged by some rabbis who were upset over the recent actions of RCA member Rabbi Avi Weiss.

The RCA resolution notes that “young Orthodox women are now being reared, educated, and inspired by mothers, teachers and mentors who are themselves beneficiaries of advanced women’s Torah education,” and it embraces the idea of such scholars assuming communal roles.

“As members of the new generation rise to positions of influence and stature,” the resolution states, “we pray that they will contribute to an ever-broadening and ever-deepening wellspring” of Torah study, religious commitment and observance of mitzvot.

http://www.forward.com/articles/127573/

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Agunot such as this woman are the focus of an unprecedented information-gathering campaign spearheaded by Silver Spring resident Barbara Zakheim, the founder of the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse of Greater Washington.

The effort -- believed to be the first U.S. national survey of agunot -- aims to illustrate the nature of the problem, its prevalence, and what communal organizations and other institutions can do to better assist these women, said Zakheim.

The survey, she adds, presupposes that the Orthodox rabbinic community will not make it easier for women to procure a get.

The survey, which is scheduled to go out this month, seeks to paint a fuller picture of agunot by inquiring about such matters as their overall numbers, finances, number of children, existing support network, relationship with rabbis on the rabbinic court, unmet needs and how long they've been chained.

Questionnaires will not be sent directly to agunot but rather to about 60 non-rabbinic organizations throughout North America that likely have dealt with these women and/or other victims of domestic abuse in the past five years.

Organizations collaborating on the project include Jewish Women International, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot and the Orthodox Union.

Deborah Rosenbloom, Jewish Women International's director of programs, says she hopes the survey results will help spur rabbinic courts to action.

"This has been dragging on and on, and it seems that the rabbis will not respond in any effective manner until they see the extent of the problem," she said. "Their actions have been totally irresponsible."

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/08/10/2740416/survey-seeks-to-paint-fuller-portrait-of-chained-wives

 

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