Sunday’s inaugural graduation at Yeshivat Maharat was no ordinary cap and gown ceremony. Rather, it was history in the making for Orthodox women.
As Ruth Balinsky Friedman, Rachel Kohl Feingold and Abby Brown Schier prepared to become the first women to hold the title maharat in the Jewish community, faculty members of the school and nearly 500 guests at the event, stressed that the historic nature of the June 16 event could not be understated.
Though the graduates are not the first women to take up positions as religious leaders within the Orthodox tradition, they mark the beginning of an institutionalized role for women who want to take their place as guides in their communities.
The enthusiasm in the room on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was palpable as the leadership of Yeshivat Maharat rose to praise the graduates. Rabbi Jeffrey S. Fox, rosh yeshiva or the head of the school, which is based in the Bronx, compared the reactions within the wider Orthodox community to the uproar at the opening concert of the “Rite of Spring” ballet in Paris in 1913. “Fistfights erupted and people were escorted out of the theater,” he said.
But with hindsight, he explained, Igor Stravinsky’s innovation came to be appreciated and admired. So, he added, will it be with Orthodox women in clergy positions.
“It is not often we are blessed to appreciate that we are witnessing history,” he concluded. “The time has come.”
Sunday’s inaugural graduation at Yeshivat Maharat was no ordinary cap and gown ceremony. Rather, it was history in the making for Orthodox women.
As Ruth Balinsky Friedman, Rachel Kohl Feingold and Abby Brown Schier prepared to become the first women to hold the title maharat in the Jewish community, faculty members of the school and nearly 500 guests at the event, stressed that the historic nature of the June 16 event could not be understated.
Though the graduates are not the first women to take up positions as religious leaders within the Orthodox tradition, they mark the beginning of an institutionalized role for women who want to take their place as guides in their communities.
The enthusiasm in the room on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was palpable as the leadership of Yeshivat Maharat rose to praise the graduates. Rabbi Jeffrey S. Fox, rosh yeshiva or the head of the school, which is based in the Bronx, compared the reactions within the wider Orthodox community to the uproar at the opening concert of the “Rite of Spring” ballet in Paris in 1913. “Fistfights erupted and people were escorted out of the theater,” he said.
But with hindsight, he explained, Igor Stravinsky’s innovation came to be appreciated and admired. So, he added, will it be with Orthodox women in clergy positions.
“It is not often we are blessed to appreciate that we are witnessing history,” he concluded. “The time has come.”