The Rabbinical Assembly, the international body of Conservative rabbis, overwhelmingly voted for the first time to admit two women Reform rabbis yesterday.
After rejecting the two candidates, both of whom received Reform ordination, two years in a row, the 85th annual meeting here of the 1,200-member Conservative rabbinical group accepted the applications of Rabbi Beverly Magidson, of Congregation Beth Shalom, Clifton Park, N.Y., a Conservative synagogue, and Rabbi Jan Carol Kaufman of Rockville, Md., chaplain of a Jewish day school.
The affirmative vote followed the adoption last month of a constitutional amendment by members of the Rabbinical Assembly by a vote of 636 to 267 to admit upon ordination the graduating class of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Thus Amy Eilberg, a 30-year-old student from Philadelphia won her right to become Conservative Judaism’s first woman rabbi.
STUDENT RABBIS APPLAUDED
At the assembly session here at the Eden Roc Hotel, Eilberg and others in her 1985 class were introduced to overwhelming applause by the assembled delegates with repeated echoes of “today we have made history.” The ordination of this year’s class will be held in May in New York City.
Commenting on the lengthy battle to win the right for women to be admitted into Conservative Judaism as rabbinic candidates, Rabbi Cassel Abelson, RA vice president from Minneapolis, said, “We are closing one act of the drama and opening the way for the next stage. We hope those who oppose us on this issue will now become a vocal minority and together join with us in tackling the many questions that confront us as rabbis and a religious movement.”
LONE DISSENTER
One voice opposed to the admission of the women candidates, Rabbi Selig Auerbach of Lake Placid, N.Y., said, “Let us not vote emotions or personalities, we are still fighting a basic question of the halacha — Jewish law.”
The admission of both rabbis Magidson and Kaufman required a majority vote of 75 percent of those RA members present at the convention — except for a handful of opposing and abstaining votes, the 400 Conservative rabbis raised their hands high when voting “yes.”
Last year the vote on admission for Magidson was 230 to 99, short by 20 votes of the 75 percent required. Kaufman’s application last year was not voted upon.
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