In 2009, Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Daniel Sperber ordained Rabba Sara Hurwitz.[3] She was the first woman to receive Orthodox semikha.[4] That same year, Hurwitz and Weiss founded Yeshivat Maharat as an Orthodox Rabbinical School for women in New York, with Hurwitz as President.[5] Four years later, the first three graduates received ordination and went on to take Orthodox leadership positions in Montreal and Washington, D.C. By 2023, 64 women had graduated from Yeshivat Maharat, and gone on to serve in clergy roles in Orthodox synagogues, schools, hospitals, universities, and Jewish communal institutions.[citation needed]
In 2015, Lila Kagedan became the organization's first graduate to adopt the title Rabbi (רבי).[6][7][8][9] Other graduates of Maharat have adopted titles such as Maharat, Rabba (רבה, a neologism), and Rabbanit (רבנית, traditionally denoting a rabbi's wife).
Response from the American Orthodox rabbinate[edit]
In 2015, the Rabbinical Council of America passed a resolution stating that "RCA members with positions in Orthodox institutions may not ordain women into the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title used; or hire or ratify the hiring of a woman into a rabbinic position at an Orthodox institution; or allow a title implying rabbinic ordination to be used by a teacher of Limudei Kodesh in an Orthodox institution."[10] That same year, Agudath Israel of America denounced moves to ordain women, and went even further, declaring Yeshivat Maharat, Open Orthodoxy, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and other affiliated entities to be similar to other dissident movements throughout Jewish history in having rejected basic tenets of Judaism.[11][12][13]
Avi Weiss has continuously tried to advocate for the right for female clergy to use the rabbi title. In protest of those denying this right to women, Weiss resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America.[14][15][16][17] Rabbi Asher Lopatin also resigned in protest of the RCA resolution.[18] Rabbi Seth Farber, an RCA member, called the RCA's resolution a "PR stunt by the right-wing membership of the RCA in order to further deepen the dividing lines among orthodoxy," and said that he believed the RCA leadership did not support the resolution.[19]
The word "Maharat" comes from the four core values of the institution, decided upon at the semikha (originally called "the conferral") of Rabba Sara Hurwitz. Hurwitz, whose title changed several months into her service at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, landed on her first title after discussions with Blu Greenberg who had previously published a now-famous article titled “Will There Be Orthodox Women Rabbis?” (1984). Later, in 2010, Hurwitz and Weiss changed her title to "Rabba" when it became clear that many people did not understand the title.
In response to the controversy, many articles were written in support of women taking Judaic positions of leadership. The authors include Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber, Rabbi Dr. Yoel Bin-Nun, and Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch among others.
