(JTA) — A second woman will be ordained under the title "rabba."
The Academy of Jewish Religion, a pluralistic rabbinical school in Riverdale, N.Y., is set to ordain Kaya Stern-Kaufman, 47, of Great Barrington, Mass., at a ceremony May 12, The New York Jewish Week reported Wednesday.
Her ordination comes a year after Rabbi Avi Weiss, who heads the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in the Bronx, conferred the title rabba on Sara Hurwitz, who serves the congregation, causing controversy in the Orthodox world.
A month after ordaining Hurwitz, Weiss said he would no longer ordain women with the title rabba. Weiss is not affiliated with the Academy of Jewish Religion.
Stern-Kaufman, who previously worked as a clinical social worker and as a feng shui consultant in architecture, and as a part-time Jewish educator, is following seven generations of Orthodox rabbis in her family, The Jewish Week reported.
Some of the previous year’s female graduates of the Academy of Jewish Religion had asked to graduate with the title rabba, but “we needed time to study it and consider the ramifications,” Ora Horn Prouser, executive vice president and dean of the academy, told The Jewish Week.
Stern-Kaufman is one of seven females to be graduating from the academy this year but the only one who will be receiving the rabba title.
Graduating rabbinical and cantorial students from the academy, which was founded in 1956, receive a master’s degree from Gratz College, a general college of Jewish studies in Philadelphia.
The Academy of the Hebrew Language in Israel officially entered the word “rabba” into the Hebrew language last year, according to The Jewish Week.
