The 18 woman rabbinical candidates to be ordained this month and next — including the first woman Conservative rabbi in American Jewish history — will bring to 110 the number of American woman ordained as rabbis since the process began in the Reform movement 12 years ago.
Moreover, the annual survey of the status of woman as rabbis conducted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency indicated that, based on enrollments in the three seminaries — the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), and the rabbinical school of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) — continuing additions to the pool of women rabbis are virtually assured for the future.
The HUC-JIR announced here today the names of the 12 candidates who will be graduated in ceremonies here and in Cincinnati. The JIR campus is located in New York. The HUC campus is located in Cincinnati.
The RRC, which had no women ordainees at the end of the 1983-84 academic year, announced that five women would be named as rabbis next month.
A spokesperson for the JTS told the JTA that there are now 20 women candidates enrolled at various academic levels at the JTS rabbinical school. Amy Eilberg, who was one of the first class of women admitted for the 1984-85 year to the JTS rabbinical school, will be one of the 12 graduates who will be ordained May 12 at the JTS.
Rabbi Gordan Tucker, the JTS rabbinical school dean, had reported previously that rabbinical candidate Eilberg had received enough rabbinical school credits for courses she had taken at the JTS to be qualified in May. Depending on a variety of factors, rabbinical training at the JTS rabbinical school requires four to six years of study.
Agreement on acceptance of women at the rabbinical school climaxed a bitter struggle of nearly a decade within the Conservative movement, led by its rabbinical arm, the Rabbinical Assembly, to accept women for ordination.
The RA set the stage for Eilberg’s admission by adoption of an amendment earlier this year by a vote of 363-267, guaranteeing acceptance by the RA of any graduate, man or woman, from the JTS rabbinical school. The large number of opposition votes was considered some indication that though RA members had led the fight for women’s admission, much resistance continues, particularly within the JTS faculty, the JTA was informed.
THE REFORM ORDAINEES
The seven Reform women ordainees to be graduated June I at the Pine Street Temple in Cincinnati are:
Lauri Ellen Coskey of Beverly Hills, Cal.; Rachel Conrad Hertzman of Louisville; Karyn Schwartz Kedar of Baltimore; Carissa Natalie Kranes of Cincinnati; Julie Ringold Spitzer of Jacksonville, Fla.; Susan Gail Warshell of Highland Park, III.; and Judith Ida Zabarenko of Rockford, III.
The five Reform women ordainees to be graduated June 9 at Temple Emanu-El here and their home towns are:
Barbara Elka Abrahamson of St. Paul; Marla Feldman of Toledo; Dayle Friedman of Denver; Linda Henry of New York City; and Barbara Goldman-War-tell of Evanston, III.
Nine men will be ordained as Reform rabbis in New York and II men in Cincinnati.
THE RECONSTRUCTIONIST GRADUATES
The names and hometowns of the five women to be named Reconstructionist rabbis June 9 at Temple Sinai in Dresher, Pa. are: Sandra Berliner of Toledo; Deborah Brin of Minneapolis; Bonnie Goldberg of Brooklyn; Andrea Gouze of the Bronx; and Vivian Schirn of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
Three men will be graduated as Reconstructionist rabbis at the Temple Sinai ceremonies.
There are currently 34 candidates in their first year of Reform rabbinic studies in Jerusalem — ten women and 24 men. The other years and enrollments are: second year — 31 students, II women and 20 men; third year — 41 students, 13 women and 28 men; fourth year — 35 students, 14 women and 21 men.
There are three men and four women in the 1984-85 prepatory year studying for the Reconstructionist rabbinate; six men and seven women in the first year; five men and four women in the second year; two men and three women in the third year; and three men and five women in the fourth year.
The RRC, founded in 1968, graduated its first woman rabbi in 1974. An RRC spokesman said Linda Holtzman, an RRC graduate, became, in 1979, the first woman rabbi of a Conservative congregation.
A continuing shortage of rabbis for Conservative pulpits has prompted the RA in recent years to accept more than 500 applicants for RA membership via convention endorsement. But until October, 1983, the JTS had barred women from its rabbinical school.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
