Four "pioneer female rabbis" met in the Boston area Monday evening for a "Hanukkah celebration" called "Raising up the Light." The event featured the first ordained North American Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative female rabbis, and "the first Open Orthodox rabba," reported the AP.
That "Orthodox rabba," as reported, was "Rabba" Sara Hurwitz, who was ordained by Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale.
The panel discussion with rabbis Sally Priesand, Sandy Sasso and Amy Eilberg and Rabba Sara Hurwitz was held at Temple Reyim in West Newton with more than 500 people in attendance.
According to a report in the Wicked Local Newton, the evening, sponsored by the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, "was a celebration of their courage and fortitude to change the course of Jewish history by sparking the rabbinate (organization of rabbis) to evolve from exclusive male leadership to an acceptance of females."
While Avi Weiss has said that it is not the intention of his institution, Yeshivat Maharat, to confer the title of "Rabba" upon its graduates, his protégé, Ms. Hurwitz continually uses the title on herself.
At the recent event at Temple Reyim, the moderator, "Rabbi" Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, dean of Hebrew College Rabbinical School, invited each of the four "rabbis" to tell her story.
Hurwitz told the audience that she viewed her path toward becoming the first Orthodox Rabba "not as a rebellion, but as a continuation of the natural evolution that began with the other three women on the panel," according to the Wicked Local Newton.
According to the report, at Avi Weiss' Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, while Hurwitz is still the only female Orthodox "Rabba," "there have been about 35 applicants, some of whom are in training now."
