Dear Rabbi
I was always sceptical about ordained Orthodox female rabbis. And now one has now been given a job in an Orthodox synagogue. That should surely suggest it is becoming acceptable. Do you envisage that happening in the UK?
Gregory
Dear Gregory
In a word, no. Don’t get me started on these pseudo-suffragettes, or should that read “rabbragettes”? In any event, she got a job in an “Open-Orthodox” synagogue – whatever that means. Suffice it to say, a little digging and one discovers on the website that on the High Holidays they have a “family section” in their synagogue, i.e. no mechitza and men and women sit together.
So, in summation, when someone gets “ordained” in some so-called Orthodox manner and immediately takes up her posting in a synagogue that breaches some of the fundamentals of Orthodoxy (I guess that’s what they mean by “open”), then you have to call into question the establishment that “ordains” these women and indeed the women’s own levels of conviction.
My father always told me: “If the end result is no good, then you know the whole premise is flawed.