H eadlines
Female Rabbis at 50: Challenges Remain
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
FIFTY YEARS AGO, Sally
Priesand became the first
publicly ordained female rabbi
in the United States.

Today, thanks to Priesand
and the women who followed
her into the rabbinate, female
rabbis are abundant and
normal. Many Philadelphia-
area synagogues have women
leading their congregations.

Two generations on from
Priesand, who was ordained
in Cincinnati and served at
temples in New York City
and Tinton Falls, New Jersey,
young women have no trouble
imagining themselves as rabbis.

Outside of the Orthodox tradi-
tion, they face no roadblocks to
becoming rabbis, either.

Local female synagogue
leaders call that progress.

But at the same time, they
still struggle against the percep-
tion that men should be rabbis.

In the Philadelphia area, female
rabbis are often the recipi-
ents of comments about how
surprising it is that women are
in the rabbinate now.

“We’ve come so far, and we
still have so far to go,” said Rabbi
Alanna Sklover of Or Hadash: A
Reconstructionist Congregation
in Fort Washington.

Sklover is in her late 30s.

She grew up in a Washington,
D.C., temple that had a female
associate rabbi.

For the Reconstructionist, a
woman leading a congregation
was something she saw every
week. When Sklover reached her
senior year of high school,
she realized that she wanted
to become a rabbi. The young
Jewish woman also had no
doubt that she could.

“That representation
mattered,” Sklover said. “And
it continues to matter.”
Beth Janus, the rabbi at
Holy Redeemer Lafayette,
a retirement community in
Philadelphia, had a similar
experience as a young woman.

She graduated from Hebrew
Union College with a class that
was 50% female.

So for Janus, becoming
a rabbi was not a matter of
acceptance. It was a journey of
self-discovery. In college, Janus and her
Catholic best friend took one
class on Christianity and
another on Judaism.

Janus would express her
Rabbi Beth Janus of Holy Redeemer Lafayette in Philadelphia
Judaism to the chaplain who
taught the Christianity class.

The chaplain told her she
should become a rabbi.

“When I really thought
about it, it actually made
sense,” Janus said. “I loved
being Jewish and found a lot of
meaning in being Jewish.”
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But even for women of
the Sklover-Janus generation,
acceptance was lukewarm.

As Rabbi Anna Boswell-
Levy of Congregation Kol
Emet in Yardley, put it: “People
said things they would have
never said to a male rabbi.”
Boswell-Levy, 45, was ordained
in 2006 and has worked at
multiple synagogues. She started
at Kol Emet, a Reconstructionist
congregation, in 2014.

In the past, congregants
called her sweetie and told her,
“You look like a baby.” The rabbi
occasionally got comments on
outfits that she wore to lead
services. Sometimes, women
were making those comments.

Boswell-Levy would respond
to the statements about her age
by saying, “Well, I’m older than
I look.” She’d answer the outfit
commentary by asking, “OK,
but what did you think of my
sermon?” Of course, she always
had to respond in the most
polite tone she could muster.

“Outwardly smile,” she said.

The Kol Emet leader doesn’t
get those comments much
Photo by Enoch Purnell
anymore. She attributes that to
both her age and tenure, going
on eight years in her position.

Rabbi Lauren Grabelle
Hermann, who
opened Philadelphia’s Reconstructionist
Kol Tzedek in 2004, said that’s a
common experience for female
rabbis. A woman will use the title
rabbi to describe herself, and
the other person will respond
with her first name. She will
talk about her ideas and see that
they aren’t taken seriously. She
will apply to lead a big congre-
gation and face questions about
how, inevitably, she will want
to have kids in the future.

Grabelle Hermann, like
Boswell-Levy, is 45. Also like
Boswell-Levy, she’s been at her
current synagogue, SAJ in New
York City, for years. So after
working hard to earn respect, the
Reconstructionist rabbi no longer
hears those comments too often.

“It’s still true that it’s often
harder for women to feel like
their authority as a rabbi is
respected, especially when
they are younger,” Grabelle
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“It’s still true that it’s often harder for women to feel like their
authority as a rabbi is respected, especially when they are younger.”
RABBI LAUREN GRABELLE HERMANN
Rabbi Cynthia Kravitz was
ordained in 1983. She spent
22 years leading Kesher Israel
Congregation in West Chester.

She also served at Congregation
Or Ami in Lafayette Hill, the
Germantown Jewish Centre in
Philadelphia and Temple Har
Zion in Mount Holly, New Jersey.

Kravitz said that when she
started, reactions to female rabbis
fell into two categories: open to it
and vehemently against it.

“There were going to be any
number of people who would
Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Hermann started Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia
tell you you couldn’t be a
back in the 2000s. Now she leads a congregation in New York City.

Photo by Chrystie Sherman rabbi,” she added. “You had to
deal with that.”
Hermann said.

Boswell-Levy, the comments
Female rabbis of Kravitz’s
But in the generation weren’t so passive-aggressive. generation had no women to
above Grabelle Hermann and They were just aggressive.

look up to, either. They were
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM JEWISH EXPONENT
the ones blazing the trail.

Kravitz explained that two
beliefs got her through: She felt
that she was supposed to be a
rabbi and that she was making
history. “The world was changing.

There were enough signs that
the Jewish world was ready to
change,” she said. “You listened
to it and you just kept going.”
Today, perceptions are less
harsh but still a challenge. Nor
are they the only remaining
difficulty. Rabbi Beth Kalisch of Beth
David Reform Congregation
in Gladwyne was ordained in
2009 and faced “sexism from
search committees” during her
early job application process.

Independent Rabbi Lynnda
Targen said that couples and
funeral homes often prefer
men to preside over weddings
and funerals.

But as Grabelle Hermann
explained, kids are now growing
up with female rabbis. She
even heard one story, from a
Philadelphia family, about kids
looking through a book with the
stereotypical image of a rabbi:
the old man with the long beard.

“They said, ‘Wait, men can
be rabbis?’” Grabelle Hermann
recalled. “That stereotypical
image didn’t resonate with
them.” l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JANUARY 13, 2022
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