The proposal by some Reform rabbis to ordain women as rabbis was termed here today “a blasphemous attempt to transform the rabbinate to a social service agency.” The attack on the proposal was made at the 13th annual conference of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, an organization affiliated with the Orthodox rabbinate.
Addressing the delegates, Rabbi C. U. Lipschitz, national director of the Rabbinical Alliance, took issue with Dr. Barnett Brickner, president of the organization of Reform Rabbis, who described women as having “special spiritual and emotional fitness to be rabbis.” Dr. Brickner made this statement at the recent convention of the Reform Rabbis where he advocated the admission of women to the rabbinate.
Rabbi Mendel Feldman, president of the Rabbinical Alliance, told the delegates that “the trend towards the Synagogue, Temple and Church, in these trying days, replete with tensions and anxieties, pose a serious threat of diluting traditional Judaism of its rational elements.”
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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.
