Get Ready, Get Set . . .Wait
Cantor, Debra
GET READY, GET SET DEBRA CANTOR On October 24, the Faculty Senate of the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary will vote on acceptance of women candidates into the rabbinical...
...Spring 1980 During the semester break, in late December, I received a typed note from the Chancellor's office, inviting me to join him for dinner at the Seminary the following week...
...It was up to the administration to worry about that...
...We knew that most of the rumors floating about were exaggerated or distorted...
...I was filled with hope and excitement— at last, the would-be women rabbis at the Seminary had begun to organize...
...I was brought up to achieve all that I possibly could, to explore and use all my capabilities," she said...
...Faculty members opposed to ordination, many from the Talmud department, threatened to boycott the January vote, and even the December proceedings...
...Coming out of a Talmud class at the Jewish Theological Seminary one day in October 1979,1 noticed a hand-lettered sign tacked to the student bulletin board: attention, women interested in becoming rabbis: let's get together to talk...
...We made no secret of the fact that we still wanted to be ordained at some point in the future...
...I thought of what my friend had said two years before about the importance of "not going public," and conceded that times had changed...
...She also teaches and lectures in the New York area on a variety of Jewish subjects...
...We've lost," I said...
...One of the administrators suggested that we take advantage of the Chancellor's absence by "really talking tachlis," and focusing on "realistic goals...
...Fall 1980 September arrived, and it was time to sign up for classes...
...I looked at him, bewildered...
...After the meeting was over, most of the women students stayed to discuss our reactions to the Chancellor's idea...
...It was only five hqSrs by train from Boston to New York City...
...Such a parallel program would not be an ideal solution to the question of women rabbis in the Conservative movement...
...The Conservative movement desperately needs people like yourselves," Cohen said...
...Several nights later, we were still very angry...
...On December 20, the JTS Faculty Senate, fearing a bitter split in its ranks, voted to table indefinitely the question of ordaining women in the Seminary's rabbinical school...
...But I could not get any confirmation of these rumors from the administration...
...I was told that all deliberations on the "Religious Ministry Program" were confidential, that I would hear about the program when everyone else did...
...We began to protest...
...We heard occasional rumors, but were told no details about the program, its length, the courses required or the degree to be granted...
...As for me, I don't know that I would be able to go back to rabbinical school now or in the near future...
...The administration then mandated us to set up a proposed curriculum for the new program, based on the statement of purpose we had discussed...
...We would prove ourselves more than worthy of being in their classes...
...always prepared and often volunteered comments and contributed to the class discussion...
...A number of the women had been angered by Dr...
...We expressed our serious dedication to Jewish scholarship, to Jewish observance and to halachah...
...Does he expect any less of them...
...Besides, I had never wanted to be a "quasi-rabbi" or a "para-professional...
...We agreed to address a letter to the members of the JTS Faculty Senate...
...From that time on, none of our group of seven was informed of or involved in the process of organizing the program...
...Cohen's appeal to us not to "leave" the Conservative movement...
...It might be two years, five years or 10 years, but it was bound to pass at some point...
...It's probably just an oversight," I began, "but you haven't called on me to read since the beginning of the year...
...I'll admit I don't feel like lobbying for this program," I said, "but I don't ever want it said that we didn't do everything we could...
...Fall 1983 I left the Seminary, feeling sad and betrayed...
...The faculty prevailed upon Chancellor Cohen, an ardent supporter of women's ordination, to appoint yet another commission, this one to study the role of women in Conservative Judaism...
...The next day we heard that the vote on women represented a ploy to oust the right wing from the Seminary community...
...The ferment within the Seminary community continued to grow...
...At the end of November 1978 I received notification that the final series of commission hearings would be held on Sunday evening, December 3, 1978, at the Jewish Theological Seminary...
...But I guess it's always easier to mobilize efforts against an issue than to get people to speak up for it," she said...
...Besides," added another administrator, "why do you want to set yourselves up for frustration...
...Did you know that there are six of us at the Seminary who want to be rabbis...
...Then, together with a number of right-wing members of the Rabbinical Assembly, the anti-ordination professors convened a protest meeting on December 18, entitling it a "Conference on Halachic Process...
...Oh no," he said, "I haven't forgotten you at all...
...As the month of December progressed, we grew increasingly optimistic...
...The Chancellor then outlined his proposal...
...After many hours, we had put together what we considered a solid and comprehensive program...
...We all knew that the ordination of women at JTS was only a matter of time...
...Over the course of a year, the Commission for the Study of the Ordination of Women as Rabbis held hearings in Jewish communities all over America...
...A series of working sessions at each other's apartments, some lasting late into the night, followed...
...We argued with the administrators, telling them that this was a far cry from the Chancellor's original proposal, that it would not provide us with the kind of broad-based education available in the rabbinical school, that it was a second-class program meant to train women who would serve as second-class synagogue functionaries...
...Others voiced disapproval at our attempts to fly in the face of Jewish tradition...
...The Chancellor then began by thanking us for coming on such short notice...
...But I'd surely welcome the opportunity to decide...
...Perhaps not forever...
...they agreed (intellectually, at least) that women as well as men are entitled, if not obligated, to study Torah...
...only days earlier, I had been sure that the vote on women would pass...
...He personally did not consider Dr...
...I called my mother in Connecticut...
...One professor told us that he was afraid the supporters of women's ordination represented a small left-wing faction and that admitting women to the rabbinical school would be interpreted as a "victory" for their side...
...Cohen for trying to convince us to accept a compromise and stay...
...I do know that every year that the Conservative movement procrastinates on the issue of women's ordination, a group of talented, committed, dynamic would-be rabbis is lost...
...Rumors flew about...
...After all, not everyone can be an Akiva...
...After a while, I began preparing those passages with special care—after all, I knew I would have to read and explain them to the class...
...Evidently, we were supposed to guess what would be required...
...So I added my voice to those of many others and spoke about my dream of becoming a rabbi...
...One day we heard that the Talmud faculty would resign en masse if the vote on women passed...
...One thing was clear: It certainly was not our responsibility to convince the anti-ordination faculty members not to oppose our alternative program...
...I eagerly read the accounts of Cohen's presentation that appeared in the Boston papers, and clipped the articles from the New York Times that summarized the commission's final report...
...However, my courses were all in the rabbinical school...
...In one class, which had fewer than 10 students and met nine hours per week, the professor neglected to call on me to read and translate the text until the first semester was nearly over, even though I was Debra Cantor is Director of the Brookdale Project of the Jewish Association for College Youth...
...we were depressed and angry...
...The professor looked flustered at first, but quickly regained his composure...
...As the meeting wore on, the administrators continued to discourage us from pursuing the alternative program...
...Cohen formally presented the commission's final report to the members of the Rabbinical Assembly at their convention, held that year in Los Angeles...
...1 have four sons, and my friend (another professor, also opposed to ordaining women) has four daughters...
...One teacher continually called on me to expound upon particularly sexist passages...
...We felt betrayed, and it hurt, because these were the very same people who had claimed to favor our cause...
...Maybe we should go public...
...There was little counter-activity from the pro-ordination camp...
...In the meantime, Dr...
...Fall 1979 The May vote was postponed until the fall, and then again until December 1979...
...It was, everyone knew, only a matter of time, and in the meantime, I planned to study at the Seminary, quietly taking all the requisite courses...
...others had been passionately committed to the idea for years...
...Cohen's plan to be feasible...
...It's not enough just to sit around here and talk to ourselves," said one participant...
...So we divided up our list of professors whom we knew to be reasonable, but definitely against ordaining women...
...In an attempt to be friendly, he asked my name and where I was from...
...Only one woman has opted to participate in the Religious Ministry Program...
...It would, however, provide a temporary solution for those of us who were ready—but not able—to attend rabbinical school right away...
...I filed the fact away for future reference...
...If I were the Chancellor of JTS, I'd probably do the same thing...
...But most of the other administrators who had attended our previous meetings were there, and we began...
...I was, therefore, surprised to find myself the only woman, or sometimes, one of two women, in most of my classes that first year...
...Most were simply silent...
...A few admitted to feeling ambivalent about the admission of women into their all-male bastion...
...We've got to show them that we're serious students, that we're here—first and foremost—to learn...
...Accordingly, course requirements in other areas would be pared down to a minimum...
...The final version of our letter explained that we were a group of women who had recently been graduated from, or were currently enrolled in, academic programs at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and that we wanted to enter rabbinical school...
...Our strategy: for pairs of students to approach those JTS faculty members who had not yet announced their positions, and to lobby them on behalf of women's ordination...
...Ever since Henrietta Szold studied there in the early part of this century, women, along with the rabbinical students and the male graduate students, have attended Seminary classes...
...Other professors at the Seminary reacted to my presence in their classes in different ways...
...Which six...
...The movement has betrayed us...
...The seven of us sat there, shocked at their pessimism and their apparent 180-degree about-face...
...Seminary Chancellor Gerson Cohen had appointed the commission at the request of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, which, in 1977, deferred its vote on women's ordination until a panel of experts had explored the halachic and social ramifications...
...As the 1980-81 school year progressed, we heard that the administration planned to grant a doctorate in Hebrew literature to graduates of the alternative program...
...I have a special rotating system and your tum, I believe, is nearly here...
...We worked out the details of our proposal up to the last minute, and didn't even have time to type up the curriculum before our scheduled meeting with the Chancellor and other administrators...
...Joining the seven of us and Dr...
...Fall 1977 I had entered JTS in September 1977, after receiving my B A in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University the previous spring...
...I didn't bother to tell him that the other students had each read many times, but simply accepted his excuse with a smile...
...When we arrived that evening...
...He had to admit that the short-term prospects for women's ordination seemed dim...
...They went on to stress that this was a viable option for the moment, and one which would not deter them from continuing to press for the eventual ordination of women...
...Part of the commission's task was to gauge the views of Conservative Jews across the United States and Canada on the question of ordaining women...
...Cohen and our desire to study in a program very similar to that of the rabbinical school...
...Our letter did not constitute the only student effort urging the faculty to ordain women...
...I beg you not to leave JTS...
...The following week, shortly before Passover, Dr...
...Cohen was absent...
...The Seminary had just begun to calm down again, they said, and this would stir up all the fireworks and unpleasantness once again...
...Such a degree program would require participants to choose an area of specialization...
...Although I was not a rabbinical student, these men were close friends of mine and I joined their group...
...Later that day, Cohen informed the press that he did not consider himself "morally or legally bound to appoint such a commission...
...It seemed like a good opportunity and I decided to take a year's leave from graduate school...
...No one at the Seminary wanted to hear about ordaining women anymore...
...But, he hastened to assure us, the situation could be salvaged...
...After the administrators left, we stayed to discuss our position and our next steps...
...Cohen, a few JTS professors and administrators took their seats around the large conference table...
...now, after working on the program for weeks, we have become committed to the idea...
...And even the most traditional professors had stopped addressing their students as "Gentlemen...
...Cohen cautioned that he could not promise to ordain us, but that the program would be carefully structured so that we could be retroactively ordained at such time as the Seminary finally voted to ordain women...
...By the time classes began in September, the Seminary was filled with talk about ordaining women...
...But, we protested, you were the first ones to support the Chancellor's plan...
...Spring 1979 On January 30, 1979, Dr...
...We decided to meet to assess the situation in a few days, when we would be able to think more clearly...
...The other professors and administrators expressed great enthusiasm for the Chancellor's plan...
...We went in pairs to speak with them, to explain about our meetings with Dr...
...After that night, the seven of us met on a regular basis—alone, with the Chancellor, with various JTS teachers, with administrators from other seminaries...
...Speaking to these professors was an eye-opening experience for me...
...Many of them, I soon learned, viewed the question of women's ordination as a purely political issue...
...They" would never take us seriously, respect us, if they felt our goal was just political, or even simply vocational...
...The letter was put into the mailboxes of Seminary faculty members on December 6, just two weeks before the scheduled vote...
...The next time the class met, I was called upon to read...
...My friend had a point...
...Upon completion of this track, we would be awarded some sort of graduate degree and assisted with placement in congregations...
...Instead, he chose a different tack...
...The copies of the proposed curriculum, which we had worked so hard to finish, lay in a pile on the table— untouched and unread...
...In mid-December, the anti-ordination faculty members marshalled their forces...
...So we were six in all...
...At last we had "gone public...
...But I managed to copy it neatly and we made photocopies to distribute to the others...
...JTS, I noticed, had changed...
...During my year away from JTS, the question of women's ordination in the Conservative movement was carefully examined by a commission of scholars, teachers, writers, lawyers, psychologists, rabbis and Conservative lay leaders...
...In the end, though, we decided to do what they had asked...
...At lunchtime, professors could be seen huddled together or gesticulating wildly...
...Fall 1978 After my first year at the Seminary, 1 was offered a full-time job as the educational and youth director of a Conservative synagogue in the Boston area...
...In the fall of 1979, a few of the students who had organized the petition effort in Israel decided to take further action, now that they were back in New York...
...In any case, I'm not so sure, any longer, that I want to be a rabbi...
...I arrived early and was greeted by a JTS professor...
...Summer 1981 Spring turned into summer and still we had no details...
...When the anti-ordination forces get wind of this alternative program for women, what do you think they will do...
...It had been a struggle to make it financially, as it is for many graduate students, but I had felt the hardship was worth it...
...The overwhelming majority of witnesses spoke up in favor of ordaining women...
...It may be that, in years to come, some of these women will return to school, completing their rabbinical studies in their 30s, 40s and 50s...
...Possibly, it was suggested, we should try to set up a "para-rabbinic" master's program, but certainly not anything more than that...
...At one of our dinner meetings with the Chancellor, in mid-January, we presented the group with a statement of purpose for the alternative program...
...He explained that everyone at JTS knew there were six women in the graduate school who wanted to be rabbis...
...But some of the women felt encouraged, even excited...
...The rumors were confirmed...
...I asked...
...Seminary patriarchs had given their endorsement to the conference, and many younger faculty members were loathe to criticize the opinions of their teachers...
...I had good reason to feel hopeful back then...
...Convinced that the faculty would vote to ordain women (in light of the 29-page commission report), I drafted a letter of resignation to the chairman of my school board...
...Given the traditional Jewish emphasis on talmud Torah, the paramount importance given to textual study, I felt that a "quasi-rabbinical" program which stressed "practical training" could only be viewed as second-rate...
...So we would be model students...
...We reported our findings to the administrators, and many of them expressed surprise...
...Instead of one or two women in each class, there were four or five...
...One is now a lawyer, one a social worker, one will soon be ordained by the Reform movement, two of us work for Jewish communal organizations...
...Herewith, the personal account of one participant in the six-year struggle...
...Their response: If we students were willing to talk the anti-ordination professors into supporting the program, then they would allow us to have it...
...But we could not discount them entirely...
...We would strive to be even better than the men...
...you had to convince us to be a part of it...
...It was shortly after my return to JTS that I spied the sign on the student bulletin board urging prospective women rabbis to come to a meeting...
...Of course, it's not the same as ordination," I said, "but I can't blame Dr...
...I was by no means the first woman to take courses at JTS...
...The other six women who had signed the 1979 letter to the JTS faculty received identical invitations...
...The previous year, JTS rabbinical students studying in Jerusalem had circulated a petition calling for the admission of women into rabbinical school...
...Cohen formally announced that the new program would begin in September 1980...
...Why should I struggle to support myself while going through a program which was as long as rabbinical school, but which would earn me no worthwhile credentials in the end...
...One of the women addressed the administrator who had cautioned us not to "overeducate" ourselves...
...The professors with whom we spoke were, without exception, polite and supportive...
...One alternative to this was to set up a separate track for us—parallel and equivalent, though perhaps not identical, to the JTS rabbinical program...
...The Faculty Senate had scheduled the opening debate on women's ordination for December 20, 1979...
...Besides, those in favor of women's ordination feared that by protesting, they would be characterizing themselves as "anti-halachic...
...Does he spend any less on their Jewish educations than I do...
...better, perhaps, than that of the rabbinical school...
...I don't want my granddaughter someday to ask me if I had tried everything, knowing that we chose not to make this last effort...
...Why should I spend four or five more years completing a program whose academic merit was questionable and whose goal was to confine women to second-class leadership status...
...Others may impose limits on me, but I'm not about to impose them on myself...
...We shared anecdotes* and talked of our funny and painful experiences as women students at the Seminary...
...now it was time for professors to get back to their research, to bury themselves in critical theory once more...
...The next day, I ran into a friend at the bank...
...We were determined to design a program at least as rigorous as that of the rabbinical school...
...And then, who knows what that group may push for," he said, "maybe the abrogation of Shabbat or the end of kashrut\" The Chancellor had to admit that the short-term prospects for women's ordination seemed dim...
...We began be telling why each of us had come...
...The Faculty Senate was set to vote in May of that year...
...why should he expect us to stay...
...Cohen emphasized, he did not want to lose us to another movement or to another profession...
...Maybe we should get together and talk strategy...
...The answer is no...
...If they were opposed to the ordination of women, they were committed to teaching women at the most advanced levels...
...I figured that if I left immediately after Hebrew school was over on Sunday, I could make it to JTS in time to testify...
...Shortly after school began, I attended a meeting of people involved with the JTS-sponsored Ramah camps...
...Which classes...
...I arrived at the sixth floor of the JTS library building on the appointed night with no idea of what to expect...
...I was unprepared as well for the reactions of some of my professors, however well-intentioned they might have been...
...But I was disappointed to read that the Rabbinical Assembly had again opted to delay the decision on women's ordination, and had passed the responsibility over to the JTS Faculty Senate...
...We counted and recounted and concluded that there were more than enough votes to pass women's ordination...
...And that is true of even the most vehement opponent of women's ordination here," said one professor...
...My friend, a vigorous feminist, shook her head...
...I had also heard that the new program was meant to train "para-professionals," people who had a more "practical," rather than an "academic," education...
...The night of the meeting, more than a dozen women crowded my friend Stephanie's small dormitory apartment...
...We were no longer surprised...
...Not all the rabbinical students aided us in our efforts, or agreed with our position...
...As the evening wore on, a few of the women expressed impatience...
...Meanwhile, I moved back to New York...
...We—and our program—had been summarily dismissed...
...No longer were teachers startled by the presence of women in Talmud courses...
...The day before the conference, three days before the vote, I realized that women's ordination was doomed...
...He discussed the vote and its implications for the near future...
...I intended to become a Conservative rabbi, even though I knew the Conservative movement had not yet agreed to ordain women...
...asked one woman...
...Now I was not so sure...
...Most of the other seven women left as well...
...We've got to do something, to take action...
...Some of the women were not sure they wanted to become rabbis...
...But most will not...
...I called one of the original seven women who was still around JTS, and asked her to confront the administration with me...
...Above all, we wanted to ensure that, as graduates of such a program, we would unquestionably be able to obtain retroactive ordination someday...
...We've got to establish credibility first...
...As the new program began to sound less and less like rabbinical school and more and more like just another graduate program, the possiblity of someday receiving retroactive ordination appeared increasingly remote...
...He announced that, by an 11 -3 majority, the commission recommended "that the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary revise its admission procedures to allow for applications from female candidates and the processing thereof for the purpose of admission to the ordination program on a basis equal to that maintained heretofore for males...
...But we needed more convincing...
...Ultimately, all of our criticisms and objections were ignored...
...She couldn't believe that the situation had changed so rapidly...
...For a number of years, I had supported myself by taking on several part-time jobs at once...
...The sign listed a date, time and place for the meeting...
...Not every woman will have the means or inclination to become a full-time student again once increasing family and financial reponsibilities weigh her down...
...Why do you want a doctoral-level program...
...Ah yes, Debbie Cantor," he said, smiling, "you're one of the six...
...The Seminary professors respected learning...
...GET READY, GET SET DEBRA CANTOR On October 24, the Faculty Senate of the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary will vote on acceptance of women candidates into the rabbinical program...
...women's ordination was clearly an emotionally-charged issue...
...He conceded that the best solution to our predicament—admitting us to rabbinical school—was beyond his personal control...
...We said that we felt our efforts were "sorely needed" and that we knew of "many communities where we would be fully accepted and could accomplish much toward furthering a greater commitment to Jewish life...
...it turned out that the majority of women at JTS were not enrolled in rabbinic text courses, but were studying Jewish education, literature or history...
...My friends and I re-tallied the votes, based on the latest grapevine reports...
...No," she said, "it wouldn't be a good idea to start anything right now...
...Then I contacted the dean's office and threatened to talk to the press...
...If not, it was unfeasible—despite the Chancellor's optimism...
...1 knew how far the Seminary community had come in just two years...
...The time of ferment and fireworks at JTS was past...
...He was away on Seminary business and had been unable to make it back in time...
...I don't know if all of the women feel bitter about the Seminary, and about our struggle to be trained as rabbis there...
...The vote was to follow in early January...
...asked one of the women...
...The next day we were given an appointment...
...His sentiments were echoed by others around the table...
...Finally, I confronted the professor...
...I was growing angry again...
...You'll just be overeducating yourselves and then find it impossible to get jobs...
...I thanked him for the information...
Vol. 8 • October 1983 • No. 9
