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Orthodox Rabbi to Michael Oren: Arrest of Woman in Tallit 'Offensive and Dangerous'

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:55:00 GMT-5

Following the recent arrest at the Western Wall of a woman wearing a Jewish prayer shawl, or tallit, a prominent American Modern Orthodox rabbi has requested that Israel’s U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren meet with “a rabbinic delegation of American Orthodox rabbis who strongly support the right of women to wear a tallit and tzitzit.”

In a letter to Oren, penned this morning, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, the spiritual leader of Ohev Sholom National Synagogue in Washington, D.C., called the arrest Monday of Nofrat Frenkel “offensive and dangerous,” adding: “You are ceding the Temple Mount and its holiness to a group of fundamentalist and exclusionary Jews who increasingly do not share that prophetic vision.”

An adapted version of the letter — it can be read in full, below — was published on former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum’s Web site FrumForum.

“If a Jew had been arrested for wearing a prayer shawl in any other country in the world, there would be outrage,” Herzfeld told The Sisterhood. “Just because it’s the state of Israel doing it doesn’t make it acceptable. It’s not coming from antisemitism, but it’s still religious persecution.”

In Defense of the Ponytail-Puller

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:00:00 GMT-5

Elizabeth Lambert, the 20-year-old former University of New Mexico soccer player on scholarship, gave her first interview this week since the incident earlier this month when she pulled an opponent to the ground by her ponytail, and was permanently suspended from her team.

The New York Times reported that Lambert “watched the video a handful of times and does not recognize herself pulling down Brigham Young’s Kassidy Shumway.”

I recognize her. A former competitive soccer player myself, I played against plenty of Elizabeth Lamberts, and I played defense aggressively, like she did.

Pugnacious play is not uncommon in soccer, particularly at the highest levels, where it so often separates a winning team from a losing one. Does that make what Lambert did kosher? Of course not. Are forceful actions like hers more common than most people think? If I had 2010 World Cup tickets, I’d bet them that it is. The game-changer is that the incident was caught on tape. The video’s viral propagation has removed Lambert’s action from the context in which it occurred. It has been misappropriated in some pretty disgusting ways that are bad for women everywhere, whether you care about sports or not.

Forward Editor: As a Mom, I'm More Conservative Than Sarah Palin

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:10:00 GMT-5

Maureen Dowd’s recent musings on whether she and Sarah Palin had anything in common — “She hunted moose, and I hunted for Bullwinkle on TV” — made me wonder whether the former Alaska governor and I might share any similar life experiences.

It’s true that I epitomize the feminist, liberal, urban, careerist, quinoa-eating media elite that Palin loves to hate; plus, I don’t like hockey and moose isn’t kosher. But there are real and important things we have in common: We’re both happily married to our first husbands. We both are familiar with juggling work and family, and are devoted to our respective faiths. And we both have three daughters — though she did me one better with the two extra sons. I have two male dogs, instead. (No day school tuition for them.)

After some careful thought, I had a surprising revelation: Contrary to our politics, I’m actually the more conservative mom. How can that be?

• I’d never take a full-time job 565 miles away from home — the distance between Wasilla and Juneau — while my kids are still young, as Palin did when she became governor. I didn’t accept an out-of-town job until my youngest daughter graduated from high school.

• I’d never travel extensively in the late stages of pregnancy, as Palin did before her last child was born. I turned down assignments because they might have compromised the fetus I was carrying.

• And I’d never, ever put my pregnant, unmarried teenage daughter on the national stage, with or without her dropout boyfriend. Whatever struggles my daughters experienced in adolescence stayed within the family, for to expose and exploit a young woman in distress is selfish and cruel.

Perhaps someone could explain how Palin’s alternative model of motherhood gets to wrap itself in the mantle of small-town, all-American conservatism, while those of us who have pursued careers, but also made sacrifices for our children are pilloried. I guess I don’t have much in common with the lady from Alaska after all.

Iris Apfel: a Jewish Collector of Great Style

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:48:00 GMT-5

88-year-old Iris Barrel Apfel, born to a Jewish family in Astoria, Queens, has long inspired a fashion world in-crowd with her sharp eye for mixing and matching accessories in serendipitous, joyous ways. A inspired collector and shopper, not a designer, Apfel is being honored with a traveling exhibit of her fashion finds, “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel” which runs until February 7, 2010 at The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, after previous stopovers at New York’s Metropolitan Museum; the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida; and the Nassau County Museum of Art.

Examples of her witty juxtapositions on display include a Lanvin silk taffeta gown accessorized with a 19th century silver and amber arm bracelet from Bhutan, and cuff bracelet from Tibet, . These pan-cultural mixes gave Apfel a reputation for eccentricity years ago, but her ardent fans include Jewish designer Isaac Mizrahi, who recently told The Boston Globe that until recently, people “thought of Iris as a nut. I never thought she was a nut. I thought she had a great eye and was amazing.’’

Other amazed friends include the Paris-based Israeli designer Alber Elbaz, described by Apfel in a recent interview as “just like a Jewish mother. He [is] so sweet. I think he’s a big talent. And I always like when someone is a talent and a person.” Clearly both of these herself, Apfel is a fiery, passionate collector, like Walter Benjamin, whose essay “Unpacking My Library” asserts that “ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have to objects.” For sharing her brightly vivid intimacies, thanks are due to Iris Apfel.

Watch two short videos below. The first is a short interview with Iris Apfel, produced for the Peabody Essex Museum exhibition, Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel.”

The second is a short video on Iris Apfel’s design of a window display at Nordstrom Northshore in Peabody, Massachusetts last month.

Eat Meat from 'Kike on a Bike'

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:13:00 GMT-5

Laughing in the face of both contemporary social networking and traditional food-scrutinizing mores, the San Francisco-based Israeli street-food vendor who calls himself Kike on a Bike has neither twitter nor hecksher.

But you should check out his harissa. Or at least so suggests the food blog at SFWeekly.com.

When approached by their intrepid tweeting blogger Tamara Palmer, KoaB revealed a mouthwatering array of North African foods including:

flatbread, ground beef, roasted eggplant puree, tomato coulis, chickpeas, fennel seeds, onions, and a lob of intense, homemade harissa that was much darker in color than the prefab kind from a tube.

While this re-blogger would suggest moving towards a spicy, apricotted tagine, KoaB revealed a secret desire to branch out into soups. Especially a hearty leg soup. As English pop group The Monks might have said, “Nice leg, shame about the faith.”

Hat tip to Gordon Haber.

Is ‘Imposter Syndrome’ Really a Women’s Issue?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:16:00 GMT-5

Have you ever acted confident when deep down you felt unqualified or incompetent — in short, like an imposter? Have you ever felt that someday you would be discovered as a fraud? A blogger for Psychology Today linked this “imposter syndrome” to women, asking “why do so many successful women feel they are frauds?” It’s an interesting question to be sure, but I can’t help wondering if the “imposter syndrome” is really specific to women, and if there might be a danger in framing it as a women’s issue.

A post about this article sparked an interesting discussion at Feministing. Many commenters agreed that the “imposter syndrome” was related to gender, and gave examples of situations that support this connection. One commenter brought up the issue of women in the sciences, arguing that women who are accepted into science and engineering schools like MIT are told they only got in because of their gender. This type of affirmative action could be said to contribute to insecurity among women in the sciences who must repeatedly confront the assumption that they do not really deserve to be where they are.

The sciences are not the only field in which women are regarded with suspicion. As recently discussed in the Forward, women face barriers in Jewish communal organizations as they confront assumptions about their abilities as leaders and fundraisers. The same assumptions can be found in business, sports, and other traditionally “male” arenas. I have no doubt that women in these fields, and all fields, experience the “imposter syndrome.”

Leah Berkenwald is the online communications specialist at the Jewish Women’s Archive, and a contributor to its Jewesses With Attitude blog, which cross-posts weekly with the Sisterhood.

Settlements Aren’t the Problem? Tell the Troops

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:46:00 GMT-5

Israel’s military brass is mildly frantic over a spreading phenomenon of political protest within the infantry ranks by soldiers threatening to disobey if ordered to dismantle settlement structures. Efforts to stem the threats are generating tensions between the military command and a network of army-linked yeshivas.

Twice in the past month soldiers in the West Bank-based Kfir Brigade have unfurled large banners declaring that their battalions would not “expel Jews.” Both incidents followed battalion operations to demolish illegal buildings in settlements.

A third banner was discovered today (November 19) at the Kfir training base in the Jordan Valley. Base commanders were uncertain who made it or when it was to be displayed, according to Ynetnews.com.

The first incident occurred October 22 at an induction ceremony at the Western Wall for recruits to the Shimshon Battalion, which had recently dismantled illegal buildings at Homesh, one of four settlements in the northern West Bank evacuated during the 2005 disengagement and now off-limits to Israeli civilians. The second incident occurred November 16 in the Nahshon Battalion, which had dismantled two illegal buildings at Neguhot, south of Hebron.

In all, six soldiers from the two units have been court-martialed and handed jail sentences ranging from 14 to 30 days. Four of them were demoted and permanently barred from combat units.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on November 17, the day after the second incident, that if “refusal” to follow orders gains ground, “it will bring about the collapse of the state.” Other leaders have issued similar warnings in recent weeks.

Within the army’s general command, particular attention is focused on yeshivot hesder, 41 military-linked rabbinical academies housing special army units that divide their army service between active duty and Talmud study. The deans of several Hesder yeshivas are said to have taught that soldiers must disobey commands contrary to religious law. The chief of the Israel Defense Force’s Manpower Division, General Avi Zamir, met with the five-man executive committee of the Union of Hesder Yeshivas November 17 and demanded that the union issue a clear statement condemning insubordination, according to various Orthodox and secular news outlets.

Unnamed army sources told Ynet that particular scrutiny was focused on the Elon Moreh yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, and the Har Bracha yeshiva under Rabbi Eliezer Melamed.

According to a Ynet report that was only partially translated into English, Zamir warned that yeshivas that had not begun taking firm, explicit action against insubordination within a week would have their ties with the army reexamined.

Jeopardy Does Jews' Clues in the Holy Land

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:37:00 GMT-5

I’ll take Israel for $2,000, Alex.

That’s what contestants on Jeopardy will be saying on Monday, November 23, when the famous quiz show is scheduled to have a Double Jeopardy category titled, “A Journey Through Israel.”

Host Alex Trebek and his team, The Clue Crew, traveled to the Holy Land in early September in what was the show’s first time there to tape questions that will air in the upcoming segment and will be scattered as individual clues throughout the year.

They spent nearly three weeks exploring and filming, starting in Tiberias and winding their way around the country.

The questions will give a taste of four of the locations Trebek and two of the three Clue Crew members visited, according to Jimmy McGuire, a Clue Crew member for the past nine seasons.

Israelis Give Abbas a Chance

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:29:00 GMT-5

It’s the million shekel question in the Middle East at the moment — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he will quit politics, but is he serious or bluffing? A 60% majority of Israel’s Jewish public thinks the declaration came from tactical considerations while only 24% believe in its sincerity, according to the latest War and Peace Index, a monthly Tel Aviv University poll.

As for whether Abbas is capable of reaching a settlement with Israel that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side and durable, 28% of Jewish Israelis think he can and 68% think or are sure that he cannot.

It seems that suspicion towards Abbas’ declaration, and doubts about his ability to make peace, are also strong among Arab citizens of Israel, with a majority of them also saying he is bluffing about quitting and unlikely to make peace.

Orthodox Zornberg Receives Coveted Reform Award

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:37:00 GMT-5

In an unprecedented cross-denominational move, Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, who describes herself as an Orthodox Jew, received the highest honor of the Reform Movement — the Maurice N. Eisendrath Bearer of Light Award.

Zornberg, the Jerusalem-based writer and teacher, delivered an acceptance speech that was no less heartfelt for going well beyond the normal hackneyed phrases of humility and gratitude. Watch it below.

Zornberg’s acceptance address — the speech itself starts at 7:00:

Read her recent interview with the Forward here, or the review of her latest book, “The Murmuring Deep”.

Hat tip to Altie Karper.

Woman of the Wall Arrest: A First-Hand Account

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:12:00 GMT-5

As they do at the start of every month, Israel’s Women of the Wall went to the Kotel on Wednesday to celebrate Rosh Chodesh.

But this time, instead of services concluding with the Musaf prayer, the experience ended with a 25 year old participant, a medical student who was wearing a tallit and carrying the group’s new Torah scroll, being arrested by police and charged with “performing a religious act that offends the feelings of others.”

The morning began pleasantly, Anat Hoffman told The Sisterhood. Hoffman chairs Women of the Wall (WoW) and is director of the Israel Religious Action Center, which is part of the Reform Movement.

Forty two women, including a group visiting from New York’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, gathered in the women’s section of the Kotel at 7 A.M. to pray the morning service. Then, because it is Rosh Chodesh Kislev, they sang Hallel, “in full voice,” said Hoffman. Sixteen of the women were wearing tallitot, she said, but “there was no complaint whatsoever from anyone.”

Ordinarily at this point in their service, WoW participants exit the Kotel plaza, walk around the enormous staircase leading up to the Dome of the Rock, proceed south and descend stairs to the archeological dig site nearby known as Robinson’s Arch, where they read from their Sefer Torah.

This is the location that Israel’s Supreme Court said they can use for their Torah readings, in its 2003 decision denying WoW the right to pray as a group at the Kotel.

This week, the women of WoW were celebrating a new Sefer Torah, one donated to them by Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation in Pittsburgh.

Best of All Worlds: Tova sings Schaechter-Gottesman at Workman's Circle

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:49:00 GMT-5

What happens when a pan-cultural jazz cabaret diva sings the songs of the first Yiddish poet to win a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship?

Well Theresa Tova has been getting in some practice with the songs of the Forward’s good friend Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, so whatever happens should be of a high caliber.

Find out for yourself at 8pm on Thursday November 19 at the old Forward building, 45 East 33rd Street. If it helps you understand what type of evening it’s going to be, there’ll be cocktails at 6:30!

Listen to a lovely song by Beyle (“Geven Amol Iz a Shetl”) that Tova didn’t sing. And below that, watch Theresa Tova below, singing a nice Jewish song that Beyle didn’t write.

Hergé, Creator of Tintin: Antisemitism for all Ages

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:52:00 GMT-5

Steven Spielberg’s 3-D Motion Capture film “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” is due for release in 2011, but already publishers are hurrying to offer books about the Belgian artist Hergé (born Georges Remi in 1907) who created its characters.

The graphic tales of the blank-faced reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy, and friend Captain Haddock, are much beloved around the world. Now that “Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin” by Pierre Assouline (Oxford University Press), a journalistic bio from 1996, and “The Metamorphoses of Tintin: or Tintin for Adults” by Jean-Marie Apostolidès (Stanford University Press) — a revised version of a 1984 psychoanalytic study — are available in English, affection for Hergé as a person may diminish.

Hergé started as an artist for fascist, antisemitic Belgian publications like “Le Soir,” which is, even today, not blameless. In 1941-42, when Belgian Jews, threatened with slave labor, wore the Yellow Star, Hergé’s Tintin adventure, “The Shooting Star,” featured a Jewish villain, Blumenstein the banker, intended, as Assouline explains, to represent the “incarnation of evil.”

Hergé, much criticized by Belgians after the Nazi defeat, revised his most egregious offenses in later editions of his books, but possibly never truly understood why they offended. In 1945, a friend who had been in a German slave labor camp returned and described Jewish concentration camp prisoners, Hergé replied: “You mistook what you saw… First of all, how do you know they were Jews? They must have been common law criminals.” While the antisemitic aura of Tintin has long been known in Europe, the new availability in English of such books will surely raise further questions about what Hergé hath wrought.

Parents anxious to avoid potentially evil writers of children’s books should turn their attention instead to “Asterix and Obelix’s Birthday: The Golden Book” co-authored by that endearing French Jew of Polish origin René Goscinny.

New Mammogram Guidelines Don't Apply To Those With BRCA Mutations

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:48:00 GMT-5

New, less-aggressive guidelines for breast cancer screenings do not apply to women at high risk for the disease, such as those who have tested positive for the BRCA genetic mutations, which are most common in Ashkenazi Jewish women.

Released Monday by the government-funded U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the new guidelines increase the recommended age at which most women should begin to get mammograms to 50, from 40. The task force, composed of “private-sector experts in prevention and primary care,” also recommends that women between the ages 50 and 74 get mammograms every two years — instead of annually — and that doctors stop teaching women how to do breast self exams.

Such changes to breast cancer screening protocols are not recommended for women at high risk for the disease. Those women are encouraged to speak with their physicians about when to begin screening.

“For women at high risk, the guidelines are different than those that apply to women who are 40 and have an ordinary risk of breast cancer,” said Rochelle Shoretz, the executive director of Sharsheret — a New Jersey-based organization that provides genetic counseling and support services to young, Jewish women with breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

How Do I Get My Son's Family To Eat Dinner Together?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:01:00 GMT-5

Dear Bintel Brief:

I’m very upset. My son, daughter-in-law and their four children NEVER sit down together at the dinner table. One child works at Abercrombie & Fitch; another is being tutored for the SAT (Sheer Agony Test); another is on a traveling soccer team; the fourth child belongs to a Jewish motorcycle club called “Chai Riders.”

I don’t want to interfere. But I’ve read studies that show that teenagers who ate five to six meals a week with their families were less likely to smoke cigarettes, use marijuana, drink alcohol, grow depressed or attempt suicide. Children who ate with their families were also more likely to have higher academic scores, confide in their parents and feel that their parents were proud of them.

Family dinners were a staple of my 1950s childhood in Rockaway Beach, N.Y. At our house, we could count on dinner every night at 6:45 — the same way we could count on our Catholic neighbors having fish on Fridays.

How can I impress upon my son’s family that the key to success is as close as the kitchen table?

A CONCERNED BUBBE

Joan Nathan responds:

Offbeat Israel: A College Reference Contingent on Joining the IDF

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:11:00 GMT-5

Want a reference from your teacher? Then enlist in the army.

There’s deep concern in the IDF about draft dodging, with the figure of army-age males avoiding compulsory military service nearing a third. Of recent, there have been several unusual moves to stem the trend. One was an advertising campaign harnessing the power of sex appeal, as discussed in this Forward article. Then the Interior Ministry began exploring the option of withholding passports in the case of draft dodging — see this Haaretz article.

Now teachers are getting involved.

At Iron Chet, a religious boys’ school in Tel Aviv, the percentage of students obeying their conscription orders stands at 96 — up from 75 in 2006. The school has been doing a hard sell to students on the importance of serving their country. It has also started to withhold benefits to those approaching the end of their school careers, but not yet signed up. For them there’s no place in the graduation ceremony, just a certificate in the mail. They don’t get letters of recommendation for further study and they’re not welcome to return to the school to visit. It will be interesting to see whether this kind of thing spreads to other schools and whether, if it gets the back up of some students, it become the subject of a legal challenge.

Herziliya, the NIMBY capital of Israel, is up in arms. The wealthy seaside town is to continue to play host to an airport. The municipality, backed by residents, is desperate to have it closed down, but the National Council for Planning and Construction has rejected the petition to do so. Herziliya, heavily populated by top-level businessmen and diplomats, probably counts the country’s most frequent fliers among its residents. But they are concerned that the airport is noisy and lowers the value of their homes.

Why It's Hard To Be a Zionist and a Feminist

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:46:00 GMT-5

The overwhelming assumption in many circles is that anti-Zionism is the only authentic feminist position. This knee-jerk position assumes that caring about human rights and equality necessitates a view Israel as a great patriarchal enemy.

I support Jewish-Muslim women’s peace efforts, and I completely support the notion that women must play a key role in bringing change to the Middle East. Women’s language, social tools and shared cultural history have the potential to alter the discourse of Palestinian-Israeli relations, by placing human relationships and care above power politics. But I don’t believe that by saying this, I should have to denounce Israel’s right to exist. I live in Israel; my family proudly serves in the army; my efforts to promote equity, fairness and democracy in Israel are based on an unwavering belief in Israel’s right to safely exist and defend its people. I believe in fighting injustice within Israeli society — not in attacking Israel at its core. But this nuanced approach rarely finds public expression, and that’s very challenging for me.

Once, an essay I wrote for The Jerusalem Post about anti-Sephardic discrimination in state-run religious schools was picked up by Web sites calling for the destruction of Israel. Shortly thereafter I was invited to contribute to an international feminist news portal as the sole Israeli representative. I still have not contributed, simply because I haven’t worked out how to write a feminist piece about women in Israel without it being used as fodder for Israel-bashing.

This issue came to the fore recently as Israelis were barred from a breast cancer conference held in Cairo.

Sex and Shtetls for Californians

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:34:00 GMT-5

UC Berkeley’s “Sex and Shtetl” Yiddish conference got off to a hot start last night with bawdy Yiddish folksongs expertly performed by Cantor Sharon Bernstein. This was followed by Dr. Ada Rapoport-Albert’s juicy lecture on illicit sexual practices among the followers of the false Jewish messiah, Jacob Frank. Monday’s fare expects to be just as hot, with all manner of Yiddish gender-bending and sexual activity. Terrific films like “Mamele” and “Mizrekh un mayrev” have been chosen to accompany the conference. It doesn’t seem like this is going to be your typically dry academic conference. As Berkeley Professor Naomi Seidman told JWeekly, “I hope it’s a little damp.”

Asking for Help: Men vs. Women

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:20:00 GMT-5

Common wisdom and social-scientific studies hold that men are less likely to ask for help than women are, a phenomenon that spreads across arenas as mundane as asking for directions and as serious as getting help for clinical depression. But according to a recent survey, there’s one realm in which men are more likely to ask others for help faster than women are — technology.

The U.K. tech support service Gadget Helpline found that 64% of men didn’t read the manual before calling for help, while only 24% of women committed this tech-misdemeanor, according to the BBC. That means, in the asking-for-directions analogy, when it comes to technology, men are less likely than women are to scrutinize “the map” (i.e. the manual) before giving up and asking a stranger for directions.

The technology blog Gizmodo attributes this discrepancy to laziness on the part of men. I would go further and argue that it’s part of the same phenomenon by which girls tend to be more diligent students than boys. So, too, women are probably more likely to be diligent consumers, doing their research before coming to ask the teacher a question, or at least following directions more exactly.

Conservative Women Rabbis Celebrate Changes, Still Face Struggles

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:13:00 GMT-5

Much has changed for female rabbis in the 25 years since the first woman was ordained in the Conservative movement — including acceptance by peers and congregants — but some things, including more difficulty getting good jobs and resentment from other women, remain challenging.

These issues were explored at a conference at the Jewish Theological Seminary on November 4 and 5, titled “Leadership Presence: Women’s Ways in the Rabbinate.” Of the 1,600 members of the Rabbinical Assembly today — the umbrella group for Conservative rabbis — 257 are women.

Several of the 75 or so women who attended were among the first ordained (Rabbi Amy Eilberg was the very first, in 1985, and was part of the gathering), and they spoke of how much things have changed.

“I was the only woman in all my classes. It was not an easy time to be here,” said Rabbi Nina Bieber Feinstein, who teaches at Los Angeles’ Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and leads the N’Shama Minyan at Congregation Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Calif. She was the second woman to be ordained at JTS, and the first Conservative rabbi to become a mother.

Fifteen years ago, at a conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first woman’s ordination, “there was still ambivalence about women at that conference, and at the seminary,” said Rabbi Debra Cantor, spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Sholom in Newington, Conn. and a member of the first class at JTS to include women. “Ten years out we were still struggling for legitimacy and still striving for authenticity.”

Now, she says, “the rabbinate has changed dramatically.”

But not completely.