Voices in the Wilderness
Emerging Roles of Israeli Clergywomen
Edited by
Jonathan L. Friedmann & Meeka Simerly
Introduction
Your Voice is Sweet
Jonathan L. Friedmann
On September 5, 2011, an IDF entertainment troupe performed at a military event at Ba”had Echad,1 an officers’ training base in the Negev region of southern Israel. When a female soldier began to sing a solo, nine observant cadets left in protest, claiming it was forbidden for them to hear a woman sing. Their regiment commander chased after them and ordered them to return. Four cadets refused and were dismissed from the officers’ training course. Following this highly publicized incident, Yonah Metzger, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel at the time, issued a responsum justifying the soldiers’ protest and demanding that the IDF only allow men to sing at military events attended by Orthodox Jews. Other prominent rabbis were quoted in the media as supporting or opposing the soldiers’ actions. Their divergent opinions mirrored the mixed reactions of observant cadets present at the ceremony, several of whom did not walk out.2
Contrast this controversy with the Jewish reality in America, where the Orthodox minority (roughly ten percent) has little significant sway on general Jewish matters, save for the standards of kashrut to which food manufacturers abide. Egalitarianism in Jewish religious life is the overwhelming norm. Few object to women serving as synagogue leaders, girls having bat mitzvah ceremonies, women training for clergy positions, or anything else. In the decades since rabbinic and cantorial ordinations/investitures were opened to women in non-Orthodox movements, the number of female seminary graduates has kept pace with or exceeded that of males. For instance, of the thirty-one rabbis ordained in 2013 by the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, fifteen were men and sixteen were women. All ten of its cantorial ordinees were women. That same year the trans-denominational Academy for Jewish Religion, California ordained one female cantor, five female rabbis and just two male rabbis. (The Academy is also the first Jewish seminary to have as its president an Orthodox woman, Tamar Frankiel. Only in America.)
The Reform movement ordained its first female rabbi in 1972, and the Conservative movement followed in 1985.3 Reform cantorial investiture (now ordination4) first opened to women in 1975, and the Conservative movement began investing women cantors in 1987.5 The gradual embrace of clergywomen in liberal Jewish communities is a complex and multi-layered socio-historical phenomenon, the intricacies of which cannot be fully addressed here. Suffice it to say that, while these decisions were hotly debated, they came as part of a larger awareness of women’s personhood and struggle for equal treatment (a vision that has had great realizations, but still faces major challenges). Blu Greenberg, co-founder of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and proponent of expanded opportunities for women within the framework of Jewish law, included the following observation in an essay written in 1987, the year women were welcomed into the Conservative cantorate. Her encapsulation of the driving ethos warrants lengthy quotation:
[B]eyond the orthodox community, in the broader society, there is a new way of looking at women today: as part of her dignity and personhood a woman should be able—and encouraged—to fill all roles that are not gender specific; that no role should be closed to her merely because of her sex. Translated, this means that a woman who hears the religious calling could and should be able to carry the congregation in prayer, could and should assume a leadership role in communal liturgy as she has so assumed in the fields of education, business, politics or volunteer organizations. More than that, one who desires to serve God and community should be welcomed and not pushed away. What, after all, does it require to be a sheliach tzibbur [messenger of a congregation]? Voice or gender is not the critical issue. Understanding, inspiration, piety, kavanah [devotional intention] are.6
What led to restrictions on women’s song in the first place? This, too, is a topic much larger than can be justly explored here. As referenced in the wake of the cadet ceremony, opinions about listening to women’s voices are not uniform within the wide umbrella of Orthodox Judaism. Without getting bogged down in halakhic (legal) minutia, it should be noted that some forbid hearing a woman sing under any circumstances, while others avoid hearing a woman while reciting the Sh’ma (the Jewish proclamation of faith).7 Either way, the traditionalist consensus is that the synagogue is no place for a woman’s voice.
The textual basis for this rule comes from an exhortative statement of Rabbi Sh’muel, a third century Babylonian sage (ca. 220 C.E.). Sh’muel searched for a biblical hook upon which to hang his view that a woman’s voice is seductive—a view not uncommon in his culture and, we might conclude, among his rabbinic colleagues. He found it in a verse from Song of Songs, in which a young man pleads to his beloved: “Let me hear your voice for your voice is sweet” (2:14). Using an interpretive method common in Talmudic discourse, Sh’muel rearranged the letters in the word arev (“sweet”) to read erva (“indecent”—i.e., sexually stimulating), thus transforming a romantic and glorifying verse into a dire warning: “A woman’s voice is indecent” (Berakhot 24a).
Interestingly, this obscure and seemingly idiosyncratic remark was not presented as a law and was not further elucidated in the Talmud. That did not prevent later authorities from grabbing hold of it, presumably because it resonated with misogynistic sentiments pervasive in their own cultural milieus. Again, some took the extreme position that a man should never listen to a woman sing, while others suggested that a woman’s voice should not be heard during prayer. From these varied discussions evolved the principle of kol isha (“the voice of a woman”), which at minimum bans women from religious singing.
Kol isha is part of a larger assortment of restrictive customs, the sum total of which resulted in the barring of women from the Jewish clergy. These customs include the release of women from time-bound ritual obligations (ostensibly to allow them to care for their children), the separation of women and men in public prayer (to keep men from lustful thoughts during prayer), and related instructions concerning women’s modesty in appearance (reinforcing the desire that women keep a low public profile). Chief among these is the exemption from time-bound positive commandments, including public worship, which is interpreted to render a person ineligible to pray on another’s behalf—the central ritual function of rabbis and cantors.
In the United States, where Jewish expression is voluntary and denominationally diverse, individuals may choose to align themselves with Orthodoxy, identify with a more progressive system or abstain from formal affiliation. With the free exercise of religion, each of these permutations falls outside the parameters of governmental control, making Jewish identity a very personal matter. If one affirms the principle of kol isha and the broader array of Orthodox legalism, that option is available. If one opposes such restrictions, an assortment of possibilities can be explored.
Israel is a different matter. On one hand, the progressiveness and egalitarianism of Israeli society rival that of the United States. Women occupy the highest levels of government and most esteemed secular professions. According to a 2012 survey conducted by the Jerusalem-based Guttman Center, more than three-quarters of Israelis self-identify as non-religious, a diverse category encompassing the anti-religious, the holiday observant, and the merely secular. Such identification does not come with the existential crisis so often present among secular American Jews. Since Israel is a Jewish state, asserting one’s Jewishness does not require overt displays or the extra effort of synagogue membership. When the majority of the population is Jewish, assertion is unnecessary. This is partly why the Reform and Conservative movements have struggled to capture the popular imagination. (Recent strides in this regard owe much to the efforts of several contributors to this book.)
On the other hand, the state-appointed twin rabbinate in Israel (Ashkenazi and Sephardi) is granted a level and type of power distinct from its counterparts elsewhere in the Jewish world, ancient or modern. As a consequence, Orthodox Judaism is in essence the “established state religion” of Israel, making it exceedingly difficult for other forms of Judaism to find a place within the political structure and in the hearts of the people. Like most subjects touched upon in this introduction, obstacles faced by Israelis seeking more diverse religious expression are too many to enumerate.
Perhaps the most illustrative is the fact that Israel establishes halakhah as state law in issues pertaining to personal status, including marriage, divorce and conversion, and gives rabbinic courts the authority of civil courts in these matters. Rabbinical appointments are granted through a complex process involving the Ministry of Religious Affairs, chief rabbinates, local rabbinates, and religious councils, all of which are comprised almost exclusively of Orthodox Jews.8 Within this religious structure, the leaders of the haredim wield enormous influence on public policy. Although their numbers are small (roughly 7 percent of Israelis), they are empowered to implement their interpretation of religious law on the larger population.
This political reality gives Orthodox Judaism the status of an official state religion, and it creates a distance between the Orthodox and the secular majority, many of whom harbor negative feelings about “religion.” For most Israelis the idea of women serving as rabbis or cantors is not only contrary to the type of Judaism to which they are exposed, but it is also unappealing. Since women cannot be clergy in the Orthodox system and since that system dominates, even progressive Israelis have difficulty imagining the possibility of Jewish clergywomen. A typical line of questioning might be: “Is it even possible? If so, is it worth it? Why would a woman want to get so involved in religion, anyway?”
The chapters that follow provide enlightening and richly detailed answers to these questions. They are voices in the wilderness: clergywomen sounding forth from the deserts of Israel, confronting religious prejudices, challenging societal norms, and offering much-needed words of clarity, wisdom, hope and promise. Each contributor was trained and/or serves in the Reform movement, largely because of the movement’s embrace of women clergy and Israel’s historic denial of that possibility. But their stories are much larger than affiliation. Through the inviting lens of personal narratives, they touch upon an array of contemporary issues and academic disciplines, including politics, philosophy, feminism, theology, sociology, performance studies, ethnic studies, and psychology.
In part one, Rabbi Maya Leibovich recounts how a television interview with Kinneret Shiryon, the first woman rabbi to make aliyah to Israel, inspired her to become the first Israeli-born woman to enter the profession, and how she has used her calling to bring a sense of kehillah—Jewish community—to modern-minded yet spiritually thirsty Israeli Jews. Rabbi Miri Gold tells of her soul and identity searching journey from Detroit, Michigan to an Israeli kibbutz, and her landmark case in the Israeli Supreme Court to win government salaries for non-Orthodox rabbis in the country. Rabbi Ilana Baird describes her early struggles with Jewish identification growing up in Soviet Russia, and how her exposure to Shabbat services at a broken-down synagogue in Chelyabinsk eventually led her to Israel, where she established a Reform congregation for young Russian-speaking families in Haifa. Rabbi Gila Caine reflects on her early childhood and adolescence, when she struggled for a sense of power and dignity within the confines of male-dominated Orthodoxy.
In part two, Cantor Meeka Simerly relates her transition from an ultra-secular Israeli to an intense spiritual awakening, to immigration to America, to a religious calling, to assuming the pulpit of a synagogue in Northern California. Cantor Miriam Eskenasy details her slow road to the cantorate, involving a childhood in a Zionist Romanian family, upbringing in Israel, teenage years in Ohio, training in New York and Jerusalem, and her current role as cantor of Chicago’s KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation. Cantor Maria Dubinsky tells of her search for identity as she moved from Moscow to Tel Aviv to New York, and the surprising support she received from her Orthodox parents when she decided to become a cantor. Cantor Galit Dadoun Cohen describes being raised in an observant Sephardic family in Israel, being introduced to American Reform Judaism as a teenager, moving back to Israel, relocating to New York to pursue a career in opera, and changing course to become a Reform cantor. Cantor Tamar Heather Havilio explains how her experiences in theater, prayer and music have inspired her to apply performance studies to Jewish practice, and to develop innovative approaches to service leading as head of cantorial studies and the prayer development workshop at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.
Notes
1. Ba”had is an acronym for ba’sees ha’dracha, meaning “training base.” Ba”had Echad translates to “Training Base One.”
2. David Golinkin, “‘Kol B’ishah Ervah’—Is it Really Forbidden for Jewish Men to Listen to Women Singing?” Responsa in a Moment 6:2 (2011): 1.
3. The first movement-ordained woman in the United States was Sally Priesand (Reform). See “Priesand, Sally J.” in Reform Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook, ed. Kerry M. Olitsky, Lance J. Sussman, and Malcom H. Stern (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993), 168-169. Regina Jonas received private rabbinic ordination in Berlin in 1930, after graduating from the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (College of Jewish Studies), but that was an anomalous incident.
4. The Reform movement instituted cantorial ordination in 2012, changing the terminology from investiture, which had been used since its cantorial school opened in 1948 at the Hebrew Union College-Institute of Religion. The term is applied retroactively to cantors who graduated prior to 2012.
5. There were isolated cases of women serving in cantorial positions prior to their official training and recognition. The earliest known example is Julie Rosewald, who served as “cantor soprano” at Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco from 1884 to 1893. For a detailed account, see Judith S. Pinnolis, “‘Cantor Soprano’ Julie Rosewald: The Musical Career of a Jewish American ‘New Woman,’” The American Jewish Archives Journal 62:2 (2010): 1-53. Betty Robbins was the first woman appointed as cantor in the twentieth century. She was hired by Temple Avodah in Oceanside, New York in 1955.
6. Blu Greenberg, “Woman as Messenger of the Congregation: Musings of an Orthodox Jewish Feminist,” Journal of Synagogue Music 17:1 (July 1987): 10.
7. The latter view is recorded in the Shulhan Arukh (OH 75:3). For a more complete analysis of kol isha and its ambiguities, see Golinkin, “‘Kol B’ishah Ervah,’” 1-10.
8. For more ramifications of the power given to the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel, see Louis Isaac Rabbinowitz “Rabbi, Rabbinate: In Israel,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd ed., vol. 17 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), 18-19.
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