Become a Member
Features

Meet the new feminist faces of Orthodoxy

They are defying an establishment that wishes to keep the rabbinate a male monopoly

July 13, 2018 16:16
Rabba Dina Brawer (centre) with Rabbi Lila Kagedan (left)and Maharat Rachel Kohl Finegold (right)

BySimon Rocker, Simon Rocker

5 min read

Five years ago the first students graduated from a unique institution in New York. Yeshivat Maharat was founded by the doyen of “Open Orthodoxy”, Rabbi Avi Weiss, as the first in the country to ordain Orthodox women.

Twenty-six women have now received semichah from Yeshivat Maharat after completing an intensive four-year programme, among them this year the first from Britain, Rabbi Dina Brawer, the founder of the UK branch of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (Jofa).

On Sunday, Jofa supporters gathered at a dinner in London to celebrate her achievement. Two guest speakers were previous graduates of YM, Maharat Rachel Kohl Finegold and Rabbi Lila Kagedan.

It is one thing to ordain women, but another for congregations to give them jobs in defiance of an establishment that wishes to keep the rabbinate a male monopoly. Both Maharat Finegold and Rabbi Kagedan work in historic synagogues in North America — and both in roles not specifically created for women.